I recently started yet another movie watching marathon. It’s not a “tradition” of mine but since I now have more time to myself I started to use the last hours of the weekend to “recuperate” on a lot of movies I haven’t seen but wanted to.
A lot of them are bad, especially comedies. Honestly, I haven’t seen a good comedy in years. Most of what comes out recently is pure crap. One of the movies that caught my attention though, is a drama and in my opinion, it deserves to be seen.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close came out in 2011. It’s a movie made after the novel with the same name, written by Jonathan Safran Foer. The center of attention is a young boy, a 9 year old who suffers from Asperger syndrome (it doesn’t say for sure in the movie, but if you’ll watch the movie you’ll see the main character suffers from an autism disorder). His name is Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) and until the events on 9/11 he had a normal life.
His father, Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks) was also his best friend and the both of them had a special bond: Thomas used to organize scavenger hunts for his son and Oskar, who is very intelligent, played along with great enthusiasm.
The last “game” they ever played was discovering “the 6th borough” in New York. Unfortunately, Thomas Schell was at work in one of the twin towers on the tragic day of September 11. Oskar is left without a father and his mother, Linda Schell (Sandra Bullock) tries her best to take care of her son, even if the two of them are not as close as she wishes.
Despite the awful events, the story here is about this young boy and not about the tragic events.
One year has passed and the Schell family is still very much in pain. Oskar however feels the distance between him and his father grows more and more and so he decides to do something about it. Going through his father’s belongings he accidentally discovers a key. A simple key that for Oskar becomes yet another challenge: finding the keyhole that fits.
From now on the movie presents Oskar’s new scavenger hunt. He finds this important clue written on the envelope the key was in: “black”. With this in mind he begins a new mysterious journey, similar to the ones organized by his father.
Even if it seems odd that a 9 year old would travel by foot by himself in New York, after a short while he will have a travel buddy (presumably his grandfather, although the movie doesn’t give us this information) and also, his mother always knows where he is.
At this point, I leave the rest for you to watch.
Oskar searches all around the city for information about this particular key. His journey is interesting and also very challenging (given the fact that he suffers from a rare syndrome) but it goes to show how far one is willing to go to achieve a certain goal.
If you decide to see the movie, some of you may need a box of tissues or lots of patience. I fell in the category who needs patience because some of the scenes are hard to watch (an autistic child is very hard to take care of) but the movie is also quite sensible.
I recommend you this movie not because of the actors in it or because of the Oscar nominations, but because it is different from other typical movie stories we see every day. This film is one of those worth watching.
