EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE

What I love about this film is that it's about a boy who thinks.  He thinks things through with enormous energy, logic, oriented to detail,  and is thoroughly unconnected to pop culture. He is a quintessential New Yorker and like so many of Jonathan Safran Foer's characters his history  has layers of life's trauma and ordeals and his response is unique. On top of this he's considered to have autistic features (nonconclusive Asperger's Syndrome) and is so fortunate to have a father (and then a mother as well) who does not reject his thought process, but enhances it, works with him, challenges him to face his fears.    I loved young Thomas Horn's performance as well as  Max Von Sydow, Sandra Bullock, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright.  This was quite an ensemble. 

This film about a boy who loses his father on 9/11 in the towers so touched me personally.  Here we were a New York family all in different places when the towers were struck, scrambling for everyone to get home safely while we were all in different boroughs in schools and at jobs.  A good father (Tom Hanks/Abe) who himself does not have a father due to wartime traumatic events.  And then to see a young boy search so many familiar neighborhoods in the outer boroughs, interacting fearlessly with people from so many diverse cultures.  His comfort with the streets, people of all ages and cultures  (even though he is so riddled with fear and carries a tambourine to calm himself) reminded me of what my children received from that NY childhood.  For some reason NYC is always at it's finest when responding to a traumatic event.

I loved this film.  I loved the characters and the ultimate acceptance of a horrific event that brought an unspeakable loss to a very special young boy.  I'm reading the book right now as well.  It's wonderful.