Culture

If you tend to tear up in films about serious-faced, tormented kids struggling against adversity, you’ll probably be all-out sobbing before the end of this film. Its hero, Oskar (Thomas Horn) is spikily adorable with his Asperger-esque interactions and philosophical musings.

Oskar is keeping a terrible secret: his father (Tom Hanks) was killed on 9/11, but Oskar alone has heard his six final phone messages on their answering machine. He has hidden the machine from his mother (Sandra Bullock), and is now lost in a sea of grief and terrible anxiety. His panic attacks have numerous triggers, including loud noises and people that come too close. He finds himself unable to communicate his feelings to his mother.

Instead, Oskar begins a mammoth quest which involves knocking on 417 strangers’ doors and asking them about a key his father owned. He meets an old, mute man lodging with his grandmother, and finds his silence comforting, so takes him along.

The film obsesses over the last moments of Oskar’s father’s death. It is drawn-out and often hard to watch. Oskar’s dad’s last written message – “don’t stop looking” – seems like a bittersweet answer to the questions of human existence; while the world can be at times unbearably cruel, humans have the ability to plough on, and keep looking for whatever they are searching for.

While this film raises a lot of questions, including “Can a child really overcome such terrible grief?” and “Why are Tom Hanks and a surgically-enhanced Sandra Bullock playing Oskar’s parents?” it doesn’t ever properly answer them, instead settling for a comforting “finding-closure” ending. Perhaps, though, this does sum up how people deal with grief – by trying to move on as best they can, and enjoying life again. But you might leave feeling not so much emotionally moved as disoriented.