Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Cloying in the extreme, not just for the ways it exploits a tragedy but for the myriad of ways it treats its protagonist as a bundle of quirks and not as an actual character, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the crassest of Oscar bait. Shameless in its extraction of tears and manipulation of emotions, Extremely Loud demands you cry and feel something, all the while presenting its story and images in the sterile, busily edited, dimly lit house style of questionable Academy tastes. There’s nothing beneath the surface here, and even the surface is insufferable as it wraps up 9/11 in Leave It to Beaver garments. Well, if the Beave was an autistic kid lashing out against his mother and meeting an ensemble of quirky supporting characters played by too talented actors wasting time. Only Max von Sydow’s mute performance and a scene where Sandra Bullock’s frazzled, grieving mother has to explain that sometimes bad things happen without a “why” or reason attached manage to escape the grossly synthetic completely unscathed.