Based on the novel by author Jonathan Safran Foer, director Stephen Daldry's post-9/11 drama follows the journey of a nine-year-old boy as he attempts to solve a family mystery. Two years after his father (Tom Hanks) is killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks, the curious boy discovers a mysterious key hidden in a household vase and begins an exhaustive search for the matching lock which takes him all around New York and meets many interesting people along the way.