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The film adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” attempts to make the events of 9/11 personal and intimate by showing the story through the eyes of a nine-year- old who lost his father in the tragedy.

Certainly the aim of this story is noble, but the movie never amounts to more than a compilation of dissatisfying plot twists and forced emotional scenes.  

The story follows a New York City native named Oskar (Thomas Horn) as he tries to follow a few cryptic clues his father left before he died.

Oskar’s journey brings him through the lives of numerous individuals and, unsurprisingly, his story leaves a lasting effect on their lives.

Oskar is an endearing character with various social anxieties and mental quirks, but over the course of the film it becomes increasingly clear that Oskar has been severely damaged by the events of 9/11. This is the film’s opportunity to connect with the audience and become personal, but instead it remains unflinchingly clichéd. There is a predictable last-time-I-ever-saw-him scene, and while they divvy out the details of the incident throughout the movie, the little twists are never worth their own build up.

The cast shows promise, but ultimately it does not deliver. Tom Hanks makes a good “cool dad,” but he isn’t on screen for most of the picture. Sandra Bullock plays a weepier, less capable version of her character in The Blindside and undermines much of the powerful performance that Thomas Horn offers in his acting debut.

Considering Horn’s only credit before this film was winning a round on Jeopardy: Kids Week, he does well to get into his character. However, one gets the feeling that he acts his character well because he’s playing a dramatized version of himself.

Few other actors occupy the screen for most of the movie. This may be another attempt to concentrate a large event into the life of an individual, but the results are not satisfying. Of all the people Oskar meets in the film, only one of them has a lasting screen presence – the other characters come across as loose ends. The plot is complicated further by bringing in Oskar’s father’s relationship with his own father.

The humor in this movie is decidedly aimed at an older audience of moviegoers who appreciate harmless jokes. Nothing is graphic or hard to watch, and they skirt around the actual tragedy visually. The film fails to build tension, and while it builds the main character effectively, the story suffers from a lack of focus.

Ultimately, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” will connect with viewers purely because it describes a powerful event that affected many people, but it fails in its mission to make a personal 9/11 movie. It is not the first to attempt this, and it will certainly not be the last, but here “Extremely Loud” fades into the growing crowd of lackluster films attempting to personalize a historical event.