Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Critic Reviews

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is the kind of movie you want to punch in the nose.

The mysteries aren't that mysterious and some may have a hard time embracing its abrasive hero.

If imagining a city where people open their doors (or don't) to a boy with a key and a ton of questions is sentimental ... then it is vitally, beautifully so.

-Lisa KennedyFull Review

Stephen Daldry's extremely labored and incredibly crass adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel.

-Ann HornadayFull Review

The difficulty is mainly with the story, which despite all the emotion hovering around it, remains thin and uninvolving.

-Mick LaSalleFull Review

[It] gets far too cute.

-Chris VognarFull Review

It's a genuinely moving and often lovely piece of work - beautifully acted and, ultimately, earning its tears.

-Moira MacDonaldFull Review

The movie forgoes Foer's ambitious tweeness and presents Oskar's outbursts and moodiness - that precociousness - as a disorder.

-Wesley MorrisFull Review

Not for moviegoers who hold that heartstring-plucking is a betrayal of the contract between director and audience.

-Carrie RickeyFull Review

Innocent Oskar and his isn't-life-wondrous adventures left me disappointed, depressed and somewhat irritated.

-Colin CovertFull Review

Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock ... Max von Sydow, Zoe Caldwell, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, John Goodman... thanks for your honest efforts in the service of a fundamentally dishonest weepie.

-Michael PhillipsFull Review

No movie has ever been able to provide a catharsis for the Holocaust, and I suspect none will ever be able to provide one for 9/11.

-Roger EbertFull Review

You need lots of gifted people chasing after the same bad idea to make a movie as colossally misguided as this one.

-Rene RodriguezFull Review

Luckily, Horn is so good -- as is Max von Sydow, in a wordless role -- that the film resonates in spite of the tear-jerking strings Daldry pulls.

-Bill GoodykoontzFull Review

Stephen Daldry's 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close': Prescient Grief

-Joe BaltakeFull Review

Sorry, but there must be richer ways of dramatizing so obvious a theme.

-David DenbyFull Review

With one exception, the quest is lumbering at best, and precious the rest of the time.

-Rick GroenFull Review

Horn delivers a star turn as Oskar, a child trying to make sense of a tragedy that still baffles us all.

-Rafer GuzmanFull Review

Daldry and his screenwriter Eric Roth make the mistake of showing bodies falling from the Twin Towers - it's a mistake because its graphic power seems more exploitative than cathartic - but they otherwise thankfully refrain from pulling out all the stops.

-Peter RainerFull Review

Homes in on a middle ground between jumpy postmodernism and Oscar-bait uplift.

-David EdelsteinFull Review

Solidly crafted, impeccably acted and self-important in the way that Oscar loves, 'Extremely Loud' is also incredibly close to exploitation.

-Peter TraversFull Review

Renders Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling 2005 novel into unconvincing Hollywood mush.

-Andrew O'HehirFull Review

It's a unique journey that's equal parts sympathy card and celebration of human resilience.

-Richard RoeperFull Review

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close unfolds as a tough-minded but tender tale of suffering, confusion and redemption for children old enough to remember or know about the attack on the twin towers.

-Ella TaylorFull Review

A film filled with both sentiment and substance.

-Betsy SharkeyFull Review

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close approaches what I would call "9/11 porn" in the way it exploits tragedy to milk emotion.

-Peter HowellFull Review

The movie successfully reflects turmoil, looking at the world from the specific standpoint of a child who's ill-equipped to comprehend it, trying to survive as best he can.

-Robert LevinFull Review

Slightly Sappy & Annoyingly Whimsical, a movie which confronts the unspeakable and emerges merely unreal.

-Stephen WhittyFull Review

It's Oscar-mongering of the most blunt and reprehensible sort.

-Lou LumenickFull Review

While flawed and sometimes overwrought, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close's tale of the effect of 9/11 on a sensitive boy is worth seeing, particularly for its lead performance.

-Claudia PuigFull Review

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Audience

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