An 11-year-old amateur inventor who’s also a Francophile, pacifist and a vegan. Thomas Horn, 12 (the winner of 2010 Jeopardy! Kids Week), plays Oskar Schell in director Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close — an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel. Toplining Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, the film also stars Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, John Goodman and Jeffrey Wright.

Produced by Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is scripted by Academy Award-winning Eric Roth (Forrest Gump and The Insider). The creative team includes some talented heavyweights: director of photography Chris Menges and costume designer Ann Roth, both Oscar winners. Four-time Academy Award-nominee Alexandre Desplat (The King’s Speech) has composed the music.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a journey of love, hope and healing, as seen and felt by Oskar. Two years after his father died in World Trade Centre on 9/11, Oskar stumbles upon a key in a vase that belonged to his dad. What secret does the key hold? And how is it connected to his father? Oskar must traverse New York, navigating the five boroughs, for the lock that holds the key to this mystery. The exceptional and urgent journey — at times exhilarating, at times touching – brings him face to face with a diverse hodgepodge of humanity, all of them survivors in their own distinct way.

Set against the backdrop of 9/11, the movie takes a close look at a young boy’s journey — from heartrending loss to the realisation that self-discovery has the amazing power to heal. Oskar’s journey ends where it had started, but it finishes with the boy experiencing the most compassionate and essential of human experiences: Love and community.

The story is told through multiple narratives. Oskar’s paternal grandparents reveal their past, recounting the story of their childhood, courtship, marriage and separation before the birth of Oskar’s father. Their past is presented as a series of letters addressed to Oskar and his father.

Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was a follow-up to his Everything is Illuminated. That novel, Foer’s first, was adapted by Liev Schreiber in 2005 for a movie of the same name (starring Elijah Wood).

After Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, set around the tragic events of September 11, Hanks (seen earlier this year in romcom Larry Crowne), plans to adapt Erik Larson’s non-fiction novel In the Garden of the Beasts for Universal. Hanks, who will produce, may star in the film — the story of an American professor and his daughter who travel to Berlin in 1933, Hitler’s first year of power, and try to temper the Fuhrer-to-be's government. Bullock, who won rave reviews and many a award for her performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side (2009), will be seen next in Gravity, a sci-fi thriller directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Meanwhile, as far as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close goes, the film is sure to touch the heart. The sentiment and premise, as well as the fact that Daldry (Billy Elliot and The Reader) is at the helm, promise simple, evocative cinema. Go for that. If that’s not enough, the stellar cast should help make up your mind! zz