Director Stephen Daldry is no stranger to creating thought provoking dramas that are either nominated for Best Picture or Best Director. His previous work includes Billy Elliot (2000) which had three Academy Award nominations and won Best Picture at the Golden Globes.

He also directed The Hours (2002) which won Nicole Kidman her first Oscar and The Reader (2008) where Kate Winslet also took home her first Oscar. You take this director and combine it with a legendary producer like Scott Rudin (No Country for Old Men, The Firm) and you have a movie not to miss.

Thomas Horn was discovered by Rudin when he won more than $30,000 on Jeopardy during Kid's Week. Rudin offered Horn an audition for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Horn landed the role of Oskar Schell son of Thomas (Tom Hanks) and Linda Schell (Sandra Bullock). Like The Reader, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close points at the guilt of a mother who can’t explain to her son why his father has been killed. Oskar’s own guilt for freezing up and not answering Thomas Schell's last painful phone calls just prior to getting killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. And Max von Sydow, the grandfather a.k.a. “the renter” who hasn’t spoken in years with the burden of guilt that he deserted his pregnant wife some years prior.  

Oskar finds a key hidden in his deceased father’s closet and is determined to find out what this key will open. His journey begins to unravel clues about his father, or so we think? The emotions run high in this film as the scavenger hunt begins! I suggest keeping the tissue box handy.

You’ll be in Oskar’s world for 2 hours and 9 minutes. Thinking, planning, plotting and telling many many lies to gain information. This is an intense movie worth watching. Tom Hanks always delivers, Sandra Bullock is achingly real, Thomas Horn is phenomenal in his break out role while the renter, Max von Sydow steals scenes without a single peep. 

I give this movie 4 Patches out of 5

'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is playing at the Regency Rancho Niguel 8