A Movie Review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

After losing his father during 9/11, young Oskar goes on a scavenger hunt across New York to find a lock that fits the key his father left behind. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is the sort of movie you either get, or you don't get; or you like or hate. It wasn't at all what I expected it to be, and it has some very interesting things going on for it; but I just can't seem to form an opinion on it. Prepare to read a confused review. Not that the movie was confusing.

The movie starts off building on this father-son relationship. It's really strong and you can tell that Oskar really loves his father. It was done well, it didn't take long for the audience to get into thinking that the whole movie is about the father and son and that the movie revolves around them. It works really well when they take part of that, so the audience is right there with Oskar, emotionally it was really well done. I think this might be the strong point of the entire movie. The emotional reaction that you get from the characters and the story is what sets this movie apart from the rest (this year).

Another thing I liked about this movie is how they use a lot of different type of shots. There is a point when they actually use tiltshift, and it works. For those of you who don't know, tiltshift is a style of camera focus used to make a scene or picture look like a miniature. You can google it and see really cool videos. You might remember a scene in the Social Network that uses tiltshift, its during the Henley Sequence, but in that movie it looks super out of place, makes no sense. Back to this movie, the tiltshift scene makes sense, they cut from the map Oskar has to a wide shot of streets using tiltshift. It makes sense. They also have some scenes when they expand on the kid's fears and little quirks, like when he explains what makes him anxious, and the scene when the train passes on the bridge. I thought it was a really clever way to show you how Oskar feels and sees the world.

The story is great, it makes sense, it doesn't drag on for too long, it keeps you interested, but other than that is has nothing special. Character interaction is good, the big surprise for me was Sandra Bullock's character, i thought that was really really well done. Excellent even. I don't know what else to say about this movie, I definitely enjoyed it, but I don't think I would give it another watch, doesn't have a high re-watch value. If you haven't seen it, and are thinking about watching it then definitely go see it in a theater. 

MOVIE SCORE:

• 7.5/10
• A (O.W.L.)