《特别响，非常近》

    Played by newcomer Thomas Horn, young Oskar Schell (he’s 9 in the novel, 11 in the film) is the character created by novelist Jonathan Safran Foer in his 2005 book, adapted* by screenwriter* Eric Roth.

    Oskar suffers from mild autism. His father, played by Tom Hanks, is a jeweler*, fun-loving and kind-hearted, who never knew his father, who died in World War II. Oskar’s mother, played by Sandra Bullock, must rethink everything she knows about parenting and her future after her husband dies in the 9/11 attacks.

    Oskar finds a key in a small brown envelope labeled* “Black” among his late father’s things. The boy starts a journey in which he contacts* every single person named Black in New York’s five boroughs*. The key, he believes, will open some kind of door to his father’s personality*, and help explain to Oskar why his father had to die.

    Over and over we return to the image of Hanks, blurry* and floating*, turning over and over in the sky, as Oskar imagines him jumping to his death. Oskar serves as informal marriage counselor* for two couples. Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright play a divorcing* couple named Black; Zoe Caldwell is Oskar’s grandmother, with Max von Sydow playing the mute boarder* with “yes” written on one hand and “no” on the other.

    Oskar is the magic key for the whole island and beyond; his project unites millions.

    Directed with slickness* and prettiness by Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot,” “The Hours,” “The Reader”), the film pushes its prince along his path to a better place.

    In the most genteel* way, the film has both its hands around your throat, forcing you to choke up.

    Please try to see Kenneth Lonergan’s “Margaret” instead. Completed years ago and released only fitfully in 2011, Lonergan’s picture comes straight out of the mess and chaos of the years following 9/11, and without so much as a single direct reference to that date, it’s the post-9/11 movie. Daldry’s Manhattan melodrama*, by contrast, is too busy trying to make us feel good about feeling bad to say much of value about the hole in any survivor’s heart.

    (SD-Agencies)