Extremely Loud and Incredibly...Meh

SO I think I should start off by saying that I am a voracious reader.  I consume books much faster and much more frequently than I consume food, and it's safe to say I usually average about a book a day.  One of my favorites so far has been the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It was the best one I've read in a long time.  Oskar's character seemed precocious, charming even, as he searched around the city for a lock that would fit his dead father's old key.  The people he met in New York each formed a unique relationship with the young boy, and each moment was very poignant and touching.  My favorite thing about the book in particular was the character of "The Renter."  Although he was mute, he used his letters and Post-It notes to communicate with his loved ones and the son he gave up.  I also really loved the way Foer used pictures throughout the novel as well.



Needless to say, I was absolutely pumped to find out that they were making it into a movie.  Starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, no less!  But oh....my...gosh.  The first hour or so of the movie was tolerable.  But during the second half, I honestly could have cried.  And not because the acting moved me to tears or the fact that Tom Hanks lost his life in 9/11, no...I just wanted those two and a half hours of my life back.



For such a wonderful book, I found the movie to be utterly mediocre.  The only likeable character (in my eyes, at least) was Tom Hanks, and he was shown only in flashbacks.  Oskar's cleverness came off in the movie as being pure immaturity, hatefulness, even, rather than comic sarcasm.  His faux swear-words ("succotash my Balzac" and "shiitake") were pulled off well in print, but fell flat on the big screen.  I was just so very unimpressed.  Perhaps I shouldn't have read the book first, who knows?  This seems to happen to me a lot when books are made into movies, especially when I've already read the book (Water for Elephants, The Help, to name a few).  Thoughts?

xochelsea

Photo credits:  1.)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Loud_and_Incredibly_Close; 2.)  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477302/