By Vincent Abbatecola
Director John Crowley’s new film, “The Goldfinch,” had several reasons why it was going to work: it was an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Donna Tartt, which had rich characters and resonant themes; a talented cast to bring Tartt’s words to life; and a filmmaker whose experience with emotionally charged dramas would be a perfect fit for the source material. There wasn’t much doubt that this was going to be great.
How did it go wrong? In the book, the story unfolds as a dramatic, and even occasionally thrilling narrative of a young man who’s thrown into the most unusual and dangerous of circumstances, whereas the movie just seems to coast along on the bare minimum from what can be found in the book.
One day, when 13-year-old TheoDecker (Oakes Fegley) visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother, Audrey (Hailey Wist), the two get caught in a bombing that kills several people, including Theo’s mother. Afterwards, Theo comes into possession of a painting called “The Goldfinch,” which was on display at the museum. Several years later, circumstances arise that lead Theo (Ansel Elgort) into a world of art forgery.
The cast is loaded with gifted actors and actresses, such as Fegley, Elgort, Finn Wolfhard, Jeffrey Wright, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson, and Denis O’Hare. While the performers do whatever they can to bring prestige to a movie that should be overflowing with it, the script doesn’t give them much of a chance to make as strong of an impression as their literary counterparts. Even Fegley and Elgort, who show that they’re the right choices for a younger and older Theo, respectively, aren’t given much room to grow their characters because of how rushed and disjointed everything feels.
One of several frustrating aspects of Peter Straughan’s screenplay is how it’s told in a nonlinear fashion, unlike the book, which is told linearly. By having the movie do this, it doesn’t allow for us to experience Theo’s full emotional development because of how it keeps going back and forth. With the bombing being cut up into brief flashbacks that are scattered throughout the movie, we don’t experience the full weight that this has on Theo’s character. The nonlinear storytelling also prevents certain scenes from delivering the dramatic impact that they had in the novel because these sequences have buildups to them in the book, and when they’re placed out of order in a nonlinear structure, all of that buildup is lost.
Given all of the memorable characters that populate Tartt’s novel, the nonlinear approach to the story means that some of them come into the story without proper introductions, making this feel like a movie that will only make sense to people who have read the book and already know who these characters are. Not only do some of the introductions not work, but reunions between characters don’t feel earned because you’ll have Theo leaving someone in one scene, only to have him reunite with them 15 minutes later in when the movie cuts back to the present, depleting any emotion behind the reunion because of how little time has passed in the runtime.
There aren’t many chances for important scenes to take the time that they need to absorb us in the arcs of the characters, and one major area where this is evident is the portion of the film that takes place in Amsterdam, which occurs in the last half hour of the movie. It all feels hurried to the point that the actions of the characters don’t feel as significant as they should, whereas in the book, there’s plenty of time for this portion of the story to unfold, offering readers with suspense as to how everything is going to play out.
This movie also would have either worked better if there was another half hour added to it, or of it was formatted as a miniseries. There’s a lot that goes on with each character, so it would have been a huge benefit if this adaptation was expanded in some way. From Theo’s personal demons to his education of antiquing to his difficult relationship with a woman who he loves but doesn’t love him back, there’s so much fascinating material to explore from the book, but the film doesn’t provide the depth that the novel offers on these matters.
As far as technical aspects go, we can at least be glad that cinematographer Roger Deakins offers his reliably stellar camerawork. With his lensing, Deakins’visuals bring Tartt’s gorgeous descriptions of the novel’s settings to the screen, giving us beautiful images of the Met, New York City, the deserts of Las Vegas, the antique shop where Theo works, and Amsterdam.
Crowley has found success with a couple of terrific dramas in the past (“Brooklyn”and “Boy A”), so I knew going into this movie that he had experience in delivering films in which your emotions will be invested. However, the film has trouble presenting the dramatic complexity of the source material. You can tell that Crowley is trying his hardest to extract what he can from Tartt’s detailed characters into the performances, but the scripting issues prevent him from achieving what he did with those two aforementioned movies. His talent for adapting stories about young protagonists who must face the world in challenging ways was going to work for this movie, and you can see glimpses of that in the film, but it’s never given an opportunity to reach the heights at which it hinted.
Having read the book and anticipated the movie, it’s unfortunate that “The Goldfinch”turns out to be one of the biggest disappointments in film this year. If you decide to read the book, you’ll have a captivating story about a young man who sees the world’s intricacies in a painting. If you see the movie, you’ll have an underwhelming story where you don’t see much of anything.
Grade: C-