Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
2011
**
Director: Stephen Daldry
Cast: Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Thomas Horn, Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright
9-year-old Oskar loses his father in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. A year later, he goes to his dad's room and discovers a key in an envelope addressed to Black. He decides to track down every person named Black in New York City to find the lock that fits the key, and perhaps make some sense in the senseless tragedy that destroyed his family. Eric Roth scripted this somber drama from Jonathan Safran Foer's novel. Its story is clearly a parable on the city's collective grief after the Worst Day, but it would help if the two hours of contrivances and coincidences included one believable moment. Oskar is wise beyond his years and annoying beyond words, his father is a perfect saint, his mother is the embodiment of dignified grief, and the rest of New Yorkers are just incredibly supportive and understanding. The film contains some genuinely moving moments, but it feels weirdly creepy and manipulative at every turn.
