Movie Review: The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch ** ½ / *****

Directed by: John Crowley.

Written by: Peter Straughan based on the novel by Donna Tartt.

Starring: Ansel Elgort (Theodore Decker), Oakes Fegley (Young Theodore), Jeffrey Wright (Hobie), Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Barbour), Finn Wolfhard (Young Boris), Sarah Paulson (Xandra), Ashleigh Cummings (Pippa), Aneurin Barnard (Boris Pavlikovsky), Luke Wilson (Larry Decker), Willa Fitzgerald (Kitsey Barbour), Denis O'Hare (Lucius Reeve), Luke Kleintank (Platt Barbour), Peter Jacobson (Mr. Silver), Robert Joy (Welty), Boyd Gaines (Mr. Barbour), Aimee Laurence (Young Pippa), Ryan Foust (Andy Barbour).

 

Some books should probably just not become movies – and it appears like Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is one of those books. Her brick of a novel (because of its sheer heft of 784 pages) was always going to have trouble coming to the screen because of its size. But this isn’t a case where I think a miniseries would do all that much better. Tartt’s book just doesn’t lend itself to a filmed treatment – the book works because of the sheer energy of the propulsive narrative, which is built upon coincidences, which may work in book form, not so much when visualized. It also doesn’t help that the main character is fairly interior – he hides his himself from even those closest to him, which on screen, doesn’t translate well. The problem here isn’t really the performances, or the beautiful, soft light cinematography by Roger Deakins. It’s just that when translated to the screen, Tartt’s narrative feels rather silly. It always was kind of silly – but it worked in the book, not so much here.

 

The film is about Theo Decker – played as a young adult by Ansel Elgort, and as a young teenager by Oakes Fegley. When Theo was that teenager, he and his mother were visiting MOMA, when a right wing bomb blast ripped through the museum – killing his mom (I don’t think the movie mentions anything about the motives of the bomb blast). Theo has no other family – his father walked out on them six months before and no one knows where he went. For a time, he stays with the Barbour family, he was school friends with one of their kids – a wealthy New York family, where he bonds with the sensitive, fragile mother (Nicole Kidman). He also starts hanging out at Hobart & Blackwell – an antique shop, because he was next to Blackwell during the bomb blast (who was also killed) – and finds himself drawn to Pippa, Blackwell’s niece, while bonding his partner Hobart (Jeffrey Wright). Things seem to be going okay – the Barbour’s are about to adopt him – when his father (Luke Wilson) shows back up, and drags Theo to Las Vegas. In the thick of the Financial Crisis, Theo lives in an all but abandoned development – not getting along with his greedy father, or his unfeeling girlfriend (Sarah Paulson – once again showing that movie directors have no idea how to use one of our greatest actresses). He does bond with Boris (Finn Wolfhard, trying really really hard to do a Russian accent), as the pair start drinking and doing all sorts of drugs. Things don’t turn out well either – and he returns to New York. And through it all, he keeps a secret – on the day of the bomb blast, he took a valuable painting – the one that gives the story its name.

 

The major problem with the film version of The Goldfinch is that because so much happens in the novel, the film has to rush to cram as much as possible into its 149-minute runtime. As a result, many key events are breezed over quickly, many characters become one note and you wonder why the film bothers to keep them in the first place (like say Kitsey, the Barbour daughter Theo becomes engaged to, or Mr. Silver from Las Vegas). It kind of feels like Peter Straughan’s screenplay tries to cram everything in – and maybe he wrote a massive screenplay that was all shot, and then director John Crowley had to figure out how to pare it all down into movie length. As it plays in this film, everything is so built on coincidence that it’s almost comical – it works in Tartt’s novel, who is obviously trying to do some kind of modern Dickensian tale, but in the movie it seems silly – especially when we somehow get to a shootout with Dutch gangsters in the end. The film also feels like it leaves so many narrative threads hanging – as if the film is missing key scenes involving Pippa, Kitsey, Hobart, etc. – and just kind of stops.

 

I don’t think the problem here is really the performances. I’m not convinced Ansel Elgort is particularly good in the film – but he’s got the right look and feel for Theo – a man keeping secrets from everyone, who is slowly sinking, while putting on a façade. The problem is that is all the film asks him to do. Oakes Fegley as better as the younger Theo – which is saying something, as he has to carry the film through some rough patches (like Las Vegas). Nicole Kidman is actually quite good in her role – she has the ability to suggest a world of hurt underneath her own façade – and there’s enough here to suggest that if they gave Jeffrey Wright more to do than deliver monologues, he would have played Hobart quite well. I don’t blame young Wolfhard for not being a convincing younger Boris – he really is going for broke with that accent, and someone (like the director) needed to tell him to dial it back. Luke Wilson is barely given a character to play at all here with the father – and then is just kind of gone. I do admire Sarah Paulson’s ability to command the screen, even with such a poorly written and conceived role as she has here.

 

And the cinematography by the great Roger Deakins is also quite beautiful. He favors soft sunlit rooms, and warm colors while the film is in New York – and a brightly lit, almost blinding Las Vegas desert. The 14 time Oscar nominee (who finally won for his last film, Blade Runner 2049) is clearly still a master of his craft.

 

But the film is just too dull to really work. At some point in the process, a decision needed to be made to be less reverential to Tartt’s source material, and find a way to fit that narrative into a satisfying movie. Instead, it seems like they tried to do the impossible – and make a faithful adaptation of a massive book, with a narrative not suited for the form. At least the film will provide a way for high school students to write a C-level book report on Tartt’s novel without having to read the book. But other than that, The Goldfinch really does not work as a movie.