'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close' & overall disappointed

Coming away from a movie that is extremely contrived and incredibly manipulative, the feeling is more of disappointment than grief.

“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2003 novel, unfolds from the point of view of a boy named Oskar Schell whose father, Thomas, died in the Twin Towers on 9/11. From the outset, the movie would seem to have a lot going for it. It stars two Academy Award-winning actors (Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock), an awesome veteran (Max von Sydow) and an impressive supporting cast. Its director, Stephen Daldry, got an Oscar nomination for each of his previous efforts – “Billy Elliot,” “The Reader” and “The Hours.”

The trouble with “Exremely Loud” is that we can see too clearly the strings that pull the puppets designed to provoke exactly the feeling we are meant to have at a particular moment.

The boy, following the death of his father (Hanks) at the World Trade Center, goes, alone and unprotected, on a journey across New York City to meet and interview every single person whose last name is “Black.” The word “Black,” you see, was written on an envelope that contained a key the father had left inside a closet, and the boy is determined to find the matching lock and whatever it may reveal.

It seems a rather slim skeleton upon which to hang a plot. It’s particularly far-fetched that the boy’s mother (played by Sandra Bullock as if she is wearing a mask) would be uncaring or oblivious enough to allow an 11-year-old boy to undertake such a mission. In this PG-13 version of the city, though, New Yorkers are on their best behavior and we get nice little acting cameos by Jeffrey Wright (who always seems to be slumming in roles that are beneath him) and Viola Davis (whose Oscar hopes for “The Help” will be aided by her performance here). Last-reel efforts to explain some of the unlikely twists come too late to turn us around.

Thomas Horn, who landed the role of Oskar after being discovered as a “Jeopardy” contestant, tries manfully to carry the film. The fact that he comes off more precocious and annoying than charming is the fault of the script, not the acting. The character is relentlessly repetitive in his eccentricities, some of which might be explained by a possible diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. He tends to be obsessive about his goals while lacking any social skills. He’s bullied at school and trots out facts as if they were his only defense. He wears white exclusively and, in the subway, a gas mask.

Most off-putting is that Horn also narrates the film, but in the unreliable way his character would. Only directors much worse than Daldry should stoop to narration in a medium in which stories should be seen, not told.

The only expected Oscar possibility from this film is the mute performance of Max von Sydow as a mysterious man known only as “the Renter” who has “Yes” written on one hand and “No” on the other.

The most heart-wrenching moments involve not the plot contrivances, but 9/11 itself. There are the television shots seen in the background. The slow motion footage of falling bodies. And most shocking of all, Hanks’ voice messages from the tower as things get worse and worse. Truth needs no manipulation.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@ pilotonline.com