Starring Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks. Written by Eric Roth from the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. Directed by Stephen Daldry. PG. 120 min. Opens Dec. 25.

A giant smothering hug of a movie, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close wants nothing less than to take the whole of New York in its arms and say, “It’s all going to be okay.” Yet there’s something tyrannical in the film’s efforts to make sure no character’s traumas go untended. Nor are there many moments in Stephen Daldry’s Oscar-hungry adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 9/11 novel that don’t feel overdone and overcalculated.

The greatest share of this emotional weight rests on the shoulders of Thomas Horn, a former Jeopardy! phenom who makes his acting debut as Oskar Schell, a boy struggling to find a rational explanation for his dad’s death in the World Trade Center attack the year before. Being a nine-year-old polymath with obvious symptoms of Aspberger syndrome (he says tests to determine whether he had it were “not definitive”), Oskar is particularly perplexed by the tragedy that claimed his father, played in flashbacks by Tom Hanks. Unable to get much solace from his shattered mother (Sandra Bullock), Oskar channels his grief and anxiety into his meticulously planned city-wide search for the lock that fits a key he found among his father’s belongings, as well as evidence of a fabled sixth borough.

Screenwriter Eric Roth preserves much of Oskar’s first-person narration from Safran Foer’s novel—alas, the character’s quirky, obsessive tone works better on the page than it does in the voiceover track that accompanies (and deadens) large swathes of the movie. Horn’s ability to carry the load he’s been given also varies greatly from scene to scene. Hanks and Bullock do what they can to enliven their few scenes but neither is as effective as Max von Sydow, who stars as a mute mystery man involved in Oskar’s quest. The 82-year-old Swedish acting legend conveys more humanity with a few shrugs and sad glances than the rest of Daldry’s cloying movie does with its countless yanks on the heartstrings.