Oskar
Schell is a young boy that was let out of school just about the time school
started on that "worst day." He walked home with his friends, stopping
to buy a juicy juice. He ran in to his apartment building, exchanging barbs
with the doorman and went up to his apartment. There was no one home at his
apartment, he just did his regular routine, including playing the messages on
his answering machine. He heard his dad's voice...not once, not twice, but 6
times. Oskar turned on the TV to see what was happening and he knew...he knew
what it meant.
This
movie tells the incredible story of how a young boy relied on his father and
their games and interactions to get through his life; the life he felt was very
strange. He admits that he's different, that doctors thought he might have
Asperger's, but the tests were inconclusive. He's scared of the subway, the
train, people, crowds, yet his father had helped him find a way to make his way
in the big city of NY by giving him "reconnaissance missions" as a
way to force him to talk to people. Oskar shook a tambourine when he was
nervous or scared on these missions. The biggest of all missions, became
finding the owner of a key that Oskar found after his father's death. It was in
a small envelope with the name "Black" written on it. He was hoping
that this key and the mission would bring him closer to his father.
As a mom
of a child with Asperger's, this movie was very emotional to me. There is the
aspect of a child losing a parent on 9/11, which is already heartbreaking, but
the mannerisms and words that Oskar uses makes me visually replace him with my
son....how would my son react; would he hurt in the same way; would he be able
to go on?
In my opinion, I felt the writer, director and
cinematographer did a great job of showing what going through a tragedy like
this would be like for a child with Asperger's. There are times that he spews
out voluminous amounts of words....about his fears; about numbers and facts
that he knows, based on the situations at hand or just in general; about things
that he did on that terrible, awful day. Once he finds that key, he goes to an
obsessive length to find every "Black" in the phone book, writes them
all down, grouping them by boroughs, figuring out their map coordinates, and
exactly how long it would take to see all of them. As I watched this, I found
it amazing that this is how his brain works. It made me wonder if this is how
MY son's brain works. The tantrums or meltdowns that Oskar had were mild in
comparison to what my son and many other children with Asperger's or Autism
have. But I thought it was technically correct to add those in to the movie, as
a child with Asperger's would most definitely suffer with meltdowns after the
death of a parent.
There
were many ironic shots that I loved...there was a scene with Oskar sitting in
his class at school, watching a wasp trying to get out of the window. At the
same time, his father was in the top of the World Trade Center, trying to get
out. There is a scene where Oskar takes "The Renter" (who is renting
a room from his Grandmother) on one of his missions. The Renter, who is from
Germany and we later find out was held in a concentration camp, gets scared
when he sees a train rumbling over tracks.
There
were shots that showed the world through Oskar's eyes...running by the train,
the way it looks when he walks through a crowd of people. The noise magnified.
The sound of water dripping in the bathroom, how noise gets SO loud that he has
to cover his ears with his hands. To me, this was a great way to show what
Oskar was experiencing.
Before
this movie was released nationally, there were many negative reviews on the
young actor who portrays Oskar. I wrote about them previously...here. I was very upset about the way people
described Oskar, such as "grating, excessively shrill, and
someone you don't really want to spend two hours with." After seeing the
movie, I still don't understand where they get these ideas from. Oskar's voice
was not monotone; his voice had regular high and lows in his speech. It's
obvious that he is very bright, numbers and counting seem to be his thing, and really had a
small number of meltdowns, given what he was dealing with.
The
website, Rotten
Tomatoes, has a collection of both positive and negative reviews. Here
are some of the negative:
Obviously,
these reviewers have no knowledge of Asperger's and what a child with this
disorder (not disease!) sounds like, acts like, or goes through in their life!
The actor portraying Oskar does NOT have Asperger's, but he does a wonderful
job (in my opinion!) imitating what a child would do. Also, this
"isn't life wondrous" reviewer apparently did not watch the movie
closely, because it's obvious that this boy is hurting...he even takes to
pinching himself to make him stop hurting!
Some of
the good reviews I have found are as follows:
- Thomas Horn
makes the film! The emotion he manages to evoke in a single scene is
brilliant. He captivated me and had me living with him through the
emotions. Jolene Mendez, Entertainment Spectrum and JoReviews
- As a portrait of
what happens to a family when its glue
disappears, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close wrung a bucket
of tears out of me. Kimberly Jones, Austin Chronicle (this
is only one sentence of the review, the rest is slightly negative)
- Horn delivers a
star turn at as Oskar, a child trying to make sense of a tragedy that
still baffles us. Rafer Guzman, Newsday (although I don't
think it's possible to have a "touch" of Asperger's!)
There
were not as many positive reviews to be found, but I take exception with what
the majority of the reviewers claim as a negative...having 9/11 in the movie.
In my opinion it works...because that shows the phone calls, the struggle of a
child trying to make sense of the impossible, it plays on his fears of tall
buildings, airplanes, noise, and without the fact that his father died on 9/11,
many of the people helping him along the way would not be so willing to help a
child.
I cried
at least a box of tissues in this movie. Not only was it sentimental, and emotional,
but it pulled at my heartstrings, thinking of my son being in that position.
There were incredibly sad moments as well as some light-hearted ones, due to
the things our wonderful kiddos with Asperger's say...not meaning to be funny,
but they are!
There is
so much more I could say about this movie, but I'll save it until some more of
you are able to see it. I don't want to give anything away that creates the
basis of what makes this movie so great! (in my opinion) Let me know what you guys think
after you've seen this movie!
