Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: A Very 9/11 Christmas
Here is the latest trailer for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and it is one damp mess. Based on Jonathan Safran Foer's 2005 novel, it's got all the requisite benchmarks of a sobfest-out-on-Christmas day movie. Behold, the Holy Trifecta: the wondrous and precociously wise child; the underlying "family is the true meaning of Christmas" message; and the most crucial nail in the Christmas film coffin: Tom Hanks.
Look, use your head on this one. Take a good, hard look at this trailer and when it's over, take stock. Are you the type of person who will enjoy seeing Tom Hanks perfectly cast as a tragic, ill-fated, and completely lovable Dad? Then see it. Are you the kind of human who wants nothing more than to watch Sandy Bullock give a touching, tear-jerking performance, the likes of which she has given several times before? Go for it! If you are someone who is not bothered by the trailer's use of this U2 song to (effectively) draw tears, well then you my friend have come to the right show.
But if any of these things have you shrieking and running for the door, open it and keep running right on through. Because one thing about these trailers is that what you see will be what you get. There won't be any surprises hiding out in this one. No twists or turns you never saw coming. Guess what? Tom Hanks dies. Spoiler alert! This will be a schmaltzy movie and they want schmaltz lovers in those seats on opening day (please don't look me in the eyes if when you see me there). So go and weep and have the inevitable, "I remember where I was on 9/11" conversation when you leave the the theater, hug your family, and go about the rest of your Christmas feeling vaguely like a shriveled up mop.