I'm a little pissed we didn't have a shot to see Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close before our WAFCA Awards voting. The obvious tearjerker, with stark images of 9/11 and the Twin Towers, was initially set to come out a few months ago right around the time of the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Or at least that's what Daldry wanted, but wisely somebody saw just how tasteless that would be and stuck with the Christmas Day schedule.
Based on the incredibly popular novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, the story revolves around a 9-year old Manhattan boy(Thomas Horn), who finds a key once belonging to his deceased father(Tom Hanks), killed two years earlier on 9/11. The discovery sends him on a citywide quest throughout the city for what he thinks will be one final message from his father. Along the way he'll meet a number of people who are also learning to cope, and I'm sure everybody will discover something profound. Sandra Bullock, Max Von Sydow, John Goodman, Viola Davis, and Jeffrey Wright co-star.
Take out the 9/11 references, throw in some 3D and an aging filmmaker, and what you have is Hugo revisited. Seriously, this one is going to be polarizing. I can sense it already. Nobody likes an emotionally manipulative film, and this one looks to have all the trappings of just such a thing. Hopefully I'm wrong. Check out the trailer below...
