I don’t think I’ve ever been as nervous for a movie as I was for this one. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book holds such a special place as one of my three favourite fiction books of all time. After seeing the two others on that short list (The Kite Runner, Never Let Me Go) result in not-actually-bad movies that just didn’t do their books justice, I was worried that this would only cheapen the novel’s story.

To put it simply, that didn’t happen.

Book to movie adaptations aren’t easy, I gather that much. You build a relationship with a book, and figure out the intricacies behind every word on the page. While movies have more senses to stimulate, they’re a lot more like a serious date. It pulls you in for an intimate encounter with the story. The film adaptation of Foer’s other masterpiece, Everything Is Illuminated, was a good enough film to stand by itself, but about half the story and the intertwining storylines were overly converged. I feared that would happen to Extremely Loud.

In case you aren’t familiar with the story in any form, here’s the run-down. Oskar Schell isn’t like any other nine-year olds. His highly rationalistic brain, logically based paranoias, and socially distant nature force him to analyze the world as he encounters it. This gets drummed up to a breaking point when the only person he’s ever connected with, his dad, is a victim of the 9/11 attacks. A while after “the worst day,” Oskar discovers a key in his dad’s closet, arranged in a way that carried all the earmarks of the scavenger hunts he used to make for him. Oskar decides to follow this wild lead which requires him to escape his home, explore New York, and meet all kinds of broken and eccentric people and discovers how surrounded he is by stories, brokeness, and beauty.

Got it? Good.

So how well did the movie tell the story? Quite well. It’s a film you could enjoy if you didn’t read the book, but of course, I would never recommend that. Wouldn’t want you to deprive yourself of one of the greatest literary experiences ever. But the film was very much good. It was aesthetically brilliant, and poetic in their own way. It had you watching intently the entire way through. The film truly managed to pull you into the world the book created. The acting was incredible and the visuals, sights and sounds were just so incredibly vivid.

The movie’s biggest strength? Other than the genius story, I might have to give that award to Thomas Horn’s incredible portrayal of Oskar. One of my biggest concerns of this movie adaptation was the fact that Oskar was such a unique voice unlike any other, it was hard to believe any actor could truly do his character justice. All of the acting, actually, was really good. Sandra Bullock as Oskar’s mom was another great performance, and she really helped me appreciate that character even more than the first time I went through the book.

If there’s one thing I think is super important for you to know going into this film, it’s that this is an incredibly emotional piece. There were some scenes in here that had just pure power. One moment in particular had Oskar meeting an individual who had been shrouded in mystery. As Oskar began to tell his story, all  the flashes of pain and joy and questions of all the people he’d met flooded through all at once. Just about any scene between Oskar and his mom was an unbelievably raw moment.

Oskar is such an analytic guy. The way he systematically goes about his quest speaks about the way he sees the world. He mentally arranges it in a way that absolutely must make sense. Extremely Loud challenges that rationalism-only way of living by throwing us right into a moment that makes no sense- why a little boy should have to lose his dad to people who had never met him. Then we meet face after face of people whose lives are all so different and complex. Some are living, some are surviving, some are escaping, all are hurting to some degree. All of it is beauty which reveals that things don’t always make sense, but they somehow, at the same time, do. It’s a war of intuition versus reason.

There are a few laments I have, namely that an important and beautiful storyline from the book was merged with another for the movie, and it didn’t go very deep. Two of the book’s most interesting characters, including Oskar’s grandma, had their roles scaled largely back. Mainly, though, the book’s integrity is well preserved. The dialogue that comes right from the book seems perfectly natural.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is one of the most beautiful stories I’ve had the opportunity to read or watch. Be prepared for an emotional experience, and remember how much pain can bring us together.

And for the record, for whatever reason, I don’t cry very easily at all. But this got me a bit misty-eyed, which is probably the equivalent of bawling hardcore for me.