Now playing within the first-floor theater of Philadelphia’s historic Roxy Theater is Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”, a hyper-vigilant, visionary, excellent screen adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s contemporary novel.
The panoramic, artful camera play, borderline autistic comprehension of numbers/measurements/chronology + space, as well as a moving narrative engendered by the rending knife of death’s sadness yields a joyful if despairing yet ultimately triumphant tale about America immediately following the 9-11 tragedy.
It must have been exceedingly difficult pulling off a film from a novel such as this. Thomas Horn, a young newcomer to Hollywood, plays the main protagonist, whose father has been killed in the World Trade Center on 9-11-01. His character also suffers from Asperger Syndrome, a gimmicky if interesting quirkiness inherent to this screenplay and novel.
For me, the best part of the film was the acting, as evidenced by Thomas Horn’s energizer-bunny intensity inhabiting a very difficult first screen-role, as well as the incandescent Sandra Bullock, who really comes fully into her own as a premier actress. For someone who has been a fan since “Speed” and “The Net”, it is awesome to see the subtlety deftly executed in “The Blind Side”, effective in blockbustering that film and earning her an Oscar, blooming in entirety under Daldry’s direction. Her portrayal of a 9-11 widow is at once heart-breaking, tender and anguished.
Horn’s likeability wears somewhat thin as his character’s abrasiveness makes a bid for control of every scene, but still, the film does triumph. It is portraiture of the diversity of New York City, human resilience in the face of evil, malice and pain, as well as the need for compassionate connection to others’ joy and suffering. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that yesterday’s Academy Award nominations revealed Oscar nods for Daldry’s film, both in the “Best Picture” category and “Best Supporting Actor” category, for Max Von Sydow’s haunting, kaleidoscopic, enrapturing skill exhibits the mute “Renter” character with subtle, tense grandfatherly love and understanding.
I highly recommend this literary visual creation. It is not for all, and certainly manipulates emotions by cheap methods at times, but it is still important, timely and moving.
Comments