Warner Bros. has lifted the lid off their final major Oscar contender of the year with the first trailer for Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a 9/11-themed drama based on the novel by novel by Jonathan Safran Foer and adapted for the screen by Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).
The story centers on Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father (Tom Hanks) when he was killed in the September 11 attacks. Along with Horn and Hanks, the film co-stars Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright and Max von Sydow and after a test screening in New York over the weekend it is already getting very good buzz, but I’ll have more on that soon enough.
I have this at the top of my Best Picture predictions and I’m interested to hear if you think I’m on course or if I am over-estimating its value. Give the trailer a watch directly below and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments. The film hits theaters on December 25.
Oh, and if you’d like a little bit of trivia to stump some people with, Thomas Horn was on Teen Jeopardy where he won $31,000 in 2009. Not pertinent to the movie, but still interesting don’tcha think?
Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close tells the story of one young boy’s journey from heartbreaking loss to the healing power of self-discovery, set against the backdrop of the tragicevents of September 11. Eleven-year-old Oskar Schell is an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. And after finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an exceptional journey–an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity, who are all survivors in their own ways. Ultimately, Oskar’s journey ends where it began, but with the solace of that most human experience: love.
