Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Story: Oskar Schell connects the clues he needs to solve left by his dad who died the World Trade Center. Adapted from a bestseller of Jonathan Safran Foer.

Hanks and Horn

Review: You can say that the adaptation was done like a book. In this case, the main character, Oskar, is also the narrator of the story. There are flashbacks during the movie that is relevant as the story progresses. It is not another 9-11 story because expounds more on interpersonal aspect of the characters. The casting brings together Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman and Max Von Sydow. for the first time.

In my opinion, these four veterans are not the main actor but Thomas Horn. It is quite an adjustment since seeing them behind the spot light for Thomas who won the role of Oskar. Thomas and Oskar shares a lot in common. Both are equally intelligent and driven. Oskar can be compared to a gifted child because he always needs a hobby to concentrate on. In real life, Thomas actually won in Jeopardy Kids Week and since he is also Croatian, he also fluent in Croatian, speaks some Spanish and is studying Mandarin for two years.

Of all the casts, Max Von Sydow shares the spot light with Thomas among others. Von Sydow had been appearing in movies after his title role as The Exorcist but this is the only movie since then that gained much attention. His performance in this movie is something to look forward to.

There are some scenes that can be dragging so if you are tired or didn't have a good night's sleep, I suggest you watch it at a convenient time so you can enjoy the story. But there are lessons to be drawn here. I don't intend to tell what are those lessons to avoid spoiling the movie but all I can say is that the key of it all maybe figurative. Extremely, Loud & Incredibly Close opens In Philippine cinemas on February 29 and is released and distributed by Warner Bros. Phils.

TOM HANKS, THE PERFECT DAD IN “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE”

Tom Hanks

Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks stars as Thomas Schell, a devoted husband and father who was at the wrong place, at the wrong time during the fateful day of 9/11, in Warner Bros.' life-affirming drama, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

The film is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears. 

As a screen character, Thomas Schell was a challenge because he is seen entirely through Oskar’s eyes, to the extent that much about his history and inner life remain mysterious -- except for the parts that have made an impression on Oskar and especially Oskar’s memories of their very best times together, which remain indelibly immediate to him. 

To embody the essence of a father as captured in time by his young son, director Stephen Daldry thought early on of Tom Hanks. “We thought that in terms of Oskar’s memories of Thomas as the perfect dad...well, who else could that be but Tom Hanks?” recalls Daldry. “Tom took that responsibility to heart and created a real bond with child actor Thomas Horn that was evident to everybody on the set. They were absolutely charming together, which was great for me as a filmmaker, because they created this dynamic relationship and all I had to do was shoot it. It was an act of real dedication by an extraordinary actor and collaborator.”

Hanks was drawn to the way the script gets inside Oskar’s mind at a time when the power of logical facts to keep him grounded seems to have evaporated. “In the blink of an eye, the course of Oskar’s whole world changes, and he loses his only anchor,” Hanks says. “His father used to tell him that there are always clues and treasures to be found in the world. So when he finds his father’s key, it’s very interesting that Oskar devises his own elaborate hunt for what the key might mean, convinced it will somehow explain the unexplained to him. It becomes a very personal, intimate story of a kid trying to make sense in his own way of a nonsensical world.” 

He adds: “It was easiest thing in the world for me to want to do this – as soon as I read it, there was not even any question.” 

The actor says he gave a lot of consideration to the kind of father Thomas was to Oskar prior to his death. He also kept in mind that Thomas was himself a child of immigrants who took up the trade of jewelry as his only clear opportunity to support his family, even though he dreamed of being a scientist. “I think Thomas was someone who felt the real task in his life was to make sure that his very bright son became a well-rounded, content human being who might make the world a better place,” Hanks says. “Since Thomas himself grew up without a father, fathering Oskar was the most important thing to him. I think he loved inventing wild stories for Oskar, like the one he makes up about New York’s lost Sixth Borough, but he also very clearly designed these stories to get Oskar out in the world and help him feel safe there.”

In part, Hanks drew on his own experiences as a father. “The emotional part of it for me was going back and remembering what it’s like to have an 11-year-old kid who is bubbling over with life,” he says. 

While Hanks believes Thomas was well aware that Oskar often showed signs of behavior akin to Asperger’s Syndrome, he also says Thomas readily accepted and even related to many of his son’s oddities and phobias, which made the two of them even closer. “I think Thomas wasn’t bothered at all by his son’s behaviors,” he says. “Instead, he looked for ways to build bridges over Oskar’s turbulence, over his constant questions, his flights of fancy and his fears. Yet because of that, when he’s gone, it magnifies the incredible loss for Oskar even more.”

             “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

THE DAY AFTER 9/11 IN “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE”

Thomas Horn and Max Von Sydow

One of the most definitive novels about 9/11 becomes one of the year’s most cathartic cinematic experiences as Warner Bros. brings to the screen “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Directed by Stephen Daldry (“The Reader,” “The Hours”), the film has been nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards.

In 2005 the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, already renowned for his blend of incisive comedy and tragedy in his debut novel “Everything Is Illuminated,” published his follow-up “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” His second novel was, on the one hand, the playful story of an unusually precocious and sensitive boy who invents fantastical devices, dreams about astrophysics, collects a vast assortment of random facts – and is compelled into a quixotic odyssey through the fabric of New York. At the same time, the novel was the first major literary exploration into the grief of 9/11 families, and a study of how a child’s imagination helps him navigate overwhelming fear and unfathomable loss in the wake of events that no logic could possibly reconcile. 

             When Stephen Daldry read the book, he was struck most of all by Oskar’s subjective point of view. An unusual child with arrestingly high intelligence yet eccentric and obsessive behaviors that might put him on the autistic spectrum, Oskar describes the world around him with his own particular mix of naiveté and insight, nervousness and boldness, incomprehension and a need to understand. Most of all, Daldry was intrigued by how this POV, just like a child’s imagination, combined random thoughts, flashes of memory, lists of ideas and impromptu fantasies with pure emotion – all at a moment when life has irrevocably changed for Oskar’s family and the world around him. 

              “I found it truly compelling that Jonathan Safran Foer told this story not only from the perspective of a boy enduring unimaginable heartbreak, but a boy who has his own singular view of everything,” says Daldry. “It’s a perspective that is engaging, inventive and emotionally rich.” 

Oskar’s very personal experience of September 11th, and what came after, was brought to the fore in a screenplay adaptation by Eric Roth, who wanted to be true to the distinctive immediacy of Foer’s novel. “It’s a very emotional book and I hope it is a very emotional movie,” says Roth. “There’s also a real kinetic energy to the book – and the challenge was to translate that into visual imagery.” 

             Like many kids with gifted intelligence, high sensory sensitivity and impaired social skills, Oskar thrives on schedules, rules and facts yet his search takes him far from the predictable and the comfortable. But no matter what obstacles stand in his way, Oskar is determined to complete his task. 

             “Oskar is a kid who is different, but in a wonderful way,” notes Roth. “He might have a form of Asperger’s but he also has a great imagination and a real sense of curiosity along with his many fears. For a long time, he was kept afloat very much by his father who enjoyed so many similar things. So now, when Oskar finds his father’s key a year after his death, he believes it has to unlock something – a piece of advice, an object, some wisdom that his father left for him. And it leads him on an adventure that is his way of coming to terms with grief and all sorts of other things.” 

             As Roth began compacting Foer’s wide-ranging plot and finding the cinematic structure, he found Foer to be a supportive resource. “Jonathan is a wonderful novelist but my ability is to be a good dramatist and bring the work alive on the screen. He really trusted me in that process and we developed a very close and collaborative relationship.”

             Adds Stephen Daldry: “Jonathan really understands the difference between a book and a script, and was very helpful. He never once uttered the phrase, ‘Well, in the book…’ He was always open to interpretation and reinvention.”

              “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

SNEAK PEEK: “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE”

From three-time Academy Award® nominated director Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot,” “The Reader,” “The Hours”) comes the poignant drama “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” 

             The Warner Bros. film stars Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks (“Forrest Gump,” “Philadelphia”) and Sandra Bullock (“The Blind Side”) along with newcomer Thomas Horn in the role of Oskar, and was produced by Scott Rudin (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Social Network,” “True Grit”). 

             The screenplay is by Academy Award® winner Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump,” “The Insider”), based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s acclaimed bestseller. 

             “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell, an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears. Now, as Oskar crosses the five New York boroughs in quest of the missing lock – encountering an eclectic assortment of people who are each survivors in their own way – he begins to uncover unseen links to the father he misses, to the mother who seems so far away from him and to the whole noisy, dangerous, discombobulating world around him. 

             The film also stars Academy Award® nominees Max von Sydow (“Shutter Island,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Pelle the Conqueror”) and Viola Davis (“Doubt,” “The Help”), John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright and Zoe Caldwell.

             Opening February 29 across the Philippines, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.