Stephen Daldry's first three films — "Billy Elliot," "The Hours" and "The Reader" — were nominated for the Academy Award as best picture. With its serious subject, credentialed cast and heart-tugging tot, Daldry's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" has the raw ingredients of Oscar bait, but curmudgeons will find it too sweet to swallow.

Based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, the film tiptoes toward the still-smoldering rubble of ground zero at the heels of a haunted tween named Oskar Schell (expressive newcomer Thomas Horn). Oskar is a bright boy with Asperger's syndrome, and the only person who can wrangle his restless energy and curiosity is his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks). So after Thomas is killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11, Oskar obsesses over the details of that day, to glean meaning from the tragedy.

A year later, when Oskar finds an old key hidden in his father's closet, tucked in an envelope that is labeled "Black," he is convinced that it will unlock a lesson. With the diligence of a detective, he maps the locations of every New Yorker named Black and embarks on a quest to find the keeper of the lock.

It's a dubious premise, made worse by heavy-handed execution. Because Oskar is strange and scarred, we're arm-twisted to forgive his rudeness, particularly toward his mother (Sandra Bullock), from whom he still hides his father's phone messages on the morning of the attacks.

When Oskar's emphatic narration and motor-mouthed outbursts grow tiresome, he acquires a sidekick to extract more of our tears: a mysteriously mute old man (Max von Sydow) who rents a room from Oskar's grandmother and accompanies the boy on his most fearful expeditions.

Although Daldry takes us to unglamorous neighborhoods in the five boroughs, the denizens of the city are as kindly as the caricatures in a tourism ad. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is supposed to promote healing, but as they say in New York: close, but no cigar.

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"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

Two stars (out of four) • Rating PG-13 • Run time 2:09 • Content Mature thematic material and strong language