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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close | 2011 | PG-13 | - 1.5.4
Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, a nine-year-old boy (Thomas Horn) explores the city of New York searching for a lock that will fit the key left behind by his father (Tom Hanks), who died in the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Also with Sandra Bullock, Zoe Caldwell, Max von Sydow and John Goodman. Directed by Stephen Daldry. [2:09]
SEX/NUDITY 1 - We see a husband with his hands around his wife's waist and he kisses her on the cheek. A husband kisses his wife on the cheek and their nine-year-old son watches them in the reflection of a mirror. A girl kisses a boy on the cheek.
► A boy offers to give a woman a kiss and the woman tells the boy, "That is not a good idea." A boy tells a woman that a man had hugged him 17 times.
► A small portion of a boy's bare torso is visible when he lifts his shirt.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A woman watches smoke pour from a building as she speaks to her husband on the phone (the man is inside the building); the woman is visibly upset and cries. On multiple occasions we hear a man's message on an answering machine when a boy listens to it -- the boy also plays it for an older man -- and we hear the man shouting, people crying in the background and the sound of breaking glass and crashing.
► A boy experiences a vision of his father flying through the air with a burning building in the background and it is implied that the man had jumped from the burning building.
► A boy shows an older man a printed photograph of people jumping from a building: we see multiple color printouts of people jumping from a smoke-filled building and the boy explains to the older man that he thinks that the jumping men are his father. We see a shadowed profile of a body leaping from a building.
► On multiple occasions we see a boy pinching himself until he winces and we see bruises on the boy's torso. A boy shows an older man his torso, covered in small bruises from self-harm. We see a boy examining bloody blisters on his feet. A boy slaps his mother's arm to wake her up.
► A boy shouts at his mother about the death of his father, and that his father is now carbon on rooftops, in people's lungs and on dog feces; the boy begins to cry and scream, his mother holds the boy's hands in front of her as he tries to punch her and he calms down eventually. A boy shouts at his mother for burying an empty casket, she shouts back at her son, saying that she had buried the empty casket to help herself and the boy cope, and the boy continues to shout at the woman and throws things from a countertop onto the ground. A boy tells his mother that he wishes she had died rather than his father and the woman agrees with the boy, who apologizes moments later. A boy screams and rips up books and boxes, throwing shreds of paper on the ground and his mother comes in to comfort him.
► A boy shouts at his mother. A boy shouts at an older man. A woman shouts at a woman through a door. A woman appears to be shouting at her daughter. A boy watches through a pair of binoculars as a woman shouts at an older man. A boy kicks a fence and punches a building's doorbell pad while shouting. A boy shouts and slams locker doors closed, and he shouts and dumps a tray of keys on the ground. A boy shouts at an older man, saying that a bridge is unsafe; the man convinces the boy to walk across the bridge. A man shouts through a door at a boy and an older man, saying, "I'll kill you"; the man opens the door as the older man and boy run away, and the man shouts as the boy takes a photograph of him from a distance. We overhear a man shouting for a woman and the woman begins to cry as a boy watches. A boy balks when his father tries to make him go on a swing, saying, "It is not safe." A boy shouts at his mother that he is a "potential pathogen," when faking sick.
► On multiple occasions a boy tells men and women that his father had died in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on 9/11. A woman tells a man that her husband had died in the World Trade Center terrorist attack on 9/11. A boy tells a man that his father had died in the World Trade Center and had listened as the man left a message for the boy on an answering machine, detailing that he had heard crying and glass breaking before an explosion. A man tells a boy that his father had been diagnosed by a doctor as having two months to live and soon died. A boy tells an older man that he had met a man who told him that his brain "is dying" (we see an illustrated brain with the words "is dying" written next to it). A boy tells an older man that he feels like he is going to fall apart when he thinks about his dead father. A man reads aloud a list of notes from an older man to a boy; the notes read that the older man had been in a bomb shelter with his parents when they were killed. A boy asks his mother if she had not been worried that the boy was going to be "raped, strangled or killed"; the woman tells the boy that she had been worried the entire time he was gone. On multiple occasions a boy lists things he fears and that make him panic: Planes, trains, public transportation, swings, loud noises, old people, speeding things, children without parents, and people with bad teeth. A boy tells an older man that subways and public transportation are dangerous because they can be blown up easily and the older man writes a note that tells the boy not to worry. A boy looks frightened as he approaches a homeless man, but moments later they are speaking and the boy looks comfortable. On multiple occasions we hear a voiceover of a boy including the following: a boy's voiceover explains that the number of people dying is increasing and he fears that soon the world will run out of places to bury the dead and saying that people should be buried in underground skyscrapers and their families could visit them. A boy's voiceover asks if a woman can talk to God, why had God allowed her son to die. A boy asks his grandmother if an older man renting a room from her is "very dangerous"; she tells the boy to never speak to the older man because he can be "very angry." A boy asks an older man if he "hurts people" for a living, and the older man shows the boy the word, "no" on his palm. A boy tells an older man that unless he cannot speak due to severed vocal chords or cancer on his vocal chords that his inability to speak is psychosomatic. A boy dramatically tells an older man "it is a matter of life or death." A man tells his nine-year-old son that his father had "gone through some stuff" and abandoned him when his mother was pregnant.
► We see many photographs of people pinned to a wall for "missing people" after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, and a boy and his mother tape up a photograph of the boy's father. We briefly see television footage of police officers and people crowding a street. A woman leafs through a book designed by her young son and we see an interactive paper wheel that shows a man jumping off a building.
► A boy cries and runs down an empty street. A boy looks panicked as he stands in the middle of a street, holding his ears. A boy slips and falls, and he stands up unharmed. A man shoves past a boy on the street. We see a boy holding his hands over his ears in fear.
► A boy wears a gas mask in a subway. We see a boy packing a gas mask into a backpack as his voiceover explains that his grandmother had purchased the gas mask for him the day after 9/11.
► A boy accidentally knocks over a vase; it breaks into multiple pieces (he is unharmed). A boy and his father practice Taekwondo moves in a living room. We see a boy practicing Taekwondo moves by himself.
► A man is seen standing in a butcher shop and we see giant chunks of meat behind him.
LANGUAGE 4 - 1 implied F-word (fukadome you), 4 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms (1 mild), name-calling (spaz, yackov, genius, retard, childish, ridiculous, selfish butthead), 2 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - On two occasions we see a man in a bar with a glass of liquor in front of him, a man is seen holding what is implied to be a glass of liquor, and we see a bottle of liquor on a counter. A boy warns a man that he is not allowed to smoke inside and it is implied the boy stubs out the cigarette, but we do not see the cigarette or smoke.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, terrorism, death of a parent, depression, coping, disappointment, courage, grief.
MESSAGE - Grief is very difficult, and everyone deals with loss of life in different ways.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
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