Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Tonight I saw Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, starring Thomas Horn and Sandra Bullock.

The title of this film just begs its audience to rename it, so I will happily oblige:

Extremely Annoying & Incredibly Awful

Oskar (Horn) is a kid—possibly on the autism spectrum—who lost his best-friend-of-a-father on September 11. His mother, Linda (Bullock), is a grieving widow who will never be as close to her son as her deceased husband was.

There's also a grandma across the street (who communicates with Oskar via Walkie Talkie) and a possible grandpa shacking up with her, who may or may not have been a concentration camp at some point. And a gaggle of strangers—472 of them, I think—who little Oskar will encounter on his search to find a lock that fits a key that he found in his dead dad's bedroom.

That's pretty much the movie. In a nutshell.

And although that is all pretty straightforward, I came out of the film with dozens of questions:

Who thought it was okay to show a kid (I don't care if he's fictional) freezing photos he finds on the Internet of what could be his dead father jumping to his death on that terrible day? I may not have lost anyone personally in 9/11, but seeing the real people jumping on that day will be burned into my memory forever. I can only imagine how those who actually lost someone must feel seeing a such a reenactment.

Why did they have to make "The Renter" mute?

If he was from the old country, how could he understand/write English so well?

Why did Abby and William Black have to be actively separating when the already-disturbed boy shows up? And are we to believe his reappearance caused their reconciliation?

If Oskar knows not to mingle with strangers, why is he so comfortable barging into their homes to search for his answers?

How did they talk some of Hollywood's greatest A-list actors into doing this film?

What the hell was the Academy thinking nominating this for Best Picture?

I'm just baffled.

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