{"id":7831,"date":"2019-09-10T10:39:59","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T14:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7831"},"modified":"2019-09-10T10:40:02","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T14:40:02","slug":"review-the-goldfinch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7831","title":{"rendered":"Review: THE GOLDFINCH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cBrooklyn\u201d director gives us the Cliff\u2019s Notes version of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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All you need to know about \u201cThe Goldfinch\u201d movie is that the \u201ckiss\u201d gets a laugh. Teased in the trailers, we see Boris (played by \u201cit boy\u201d Finn Wolfhard), plant a kiss on Theo\u2019s lips. The audience I saw the film with chuckled. When I came to this epiphany in the book, I teared up. And thinking about it just now, I\u2019m still deeply moved.

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Finn Wolfhard as the young Boris.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Perspective and tone are askew in director John Crowley\u2019s shallow adaptation of Donna Tartt\u2019s bestseller. And it\u2019s a tired excuse to call the source material, that runs almost 800 pages, \u201cunfilmable.\u201d The fact is that Tartt\u2019s book is a very detailed, linear, and vivid coming-of-age journey told exclusively from the perspective of Theodore. The book works largely because we experience his growth from around age 13 through young adult years. We only know what he remembers, and we only see people and things as he sees them.

If you avoid this movie and read the book, you might find yourself talking to your kids a little differently. You might try to listen more and lecture less. For me, the book has had that effect, and maybe it\u2019s not too late to parent better.

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Luke Wilson as Theo’s troubled father, and Sarah Paulson as the girlfriend.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, Crowley, who works from a screenplay by Peter Straughan (see the wonderful \u201cFrank\u201d and the not-so-wonderful \u201cThe Snowman\u201d), softens the edge and blurs the perspective. Lost is the nuance that gave the novel its power.

Theodore Decker (played young by Oakes Fegley and older by Ansel Elgort) is an only child living in New York City, with his mother, a his former model and NYU art major. One day, while visiting a museum, the two are caught in the blast of a domestic terror attack. In the chaos, Theo is given a prized ring by a dying man, and he stuffs a famous painting (The Goldfinch, his mother\u2019s favorite) into a shopping bag. He then leaves and walks home, which we learn in the book was the disaster plan he and his mother had previously agreed to in the event something happened. Mom never comes home, and we learn she died in the bombing.

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Perhaps the best change from the book is casting Jeffrey Wright as Hobie.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Having no close relatives, his father is no where to be found, Theo goes to live with the Barbour\u2019s, a rich family on Park Avenue. Since the Barbour patriarch is mentally infirm, the affairs are largely managed by Mrs. Barbour (Nicole Kidman), a cold, formal woman with four children. While Theo\u2019s stay with the Barbours is civil, it is lacking in the love and intimacy that the little boy desperately needs. However, when, after a couple months, Theo\u2019s deadbeat father (Luke Wilson) shows up and takes him to Las Vegas, things get much, much worse for the little boy.

Once in Vegas, Theo meets Boris (Wolfhard), a Russian, who lives with his abusive father. In the movie, both boys bond around the death of their mothers, whereas in the book, that fact isn\u2019t the main reason they become friends. In time, Theo will return to NYC and reunite with the kind Hobie (Jeffrey Wright), the partner of the dying man who gave Theo the ring. With him always, Theo carries the painting, constantly worried that he will be caught as a thief, but unable to let it go, because it reminds him of his mother. And Theo additionally harbors guilt that if not for him, his mother may still be alive.

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Nicole Kidman should be perfect as Mrs. Barbour,
but the screenplay gets the character wrong.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clocking in at two and a half hours, \u201cThe Goldfinch\u201d movie hits the highlights of the novel, merely skimming the surface and failing to develop characters meaningfully. Part of what made the novel work for me is the journey, the disorienting challenges the boy faces from place to place. The movie rushes through them all, instead of narrowly focusing on a few of the key moments and letting them breathe.

For example, Theo\u2019s harrowing Greyhound bus trip (when he was fifteen years old) from Vegas back to NYC takes some 60 hours in the book. Not only does it seem to happen quicker in the movie, but Theo does not appear to be the right age to travel alone. Key note here, in the novel, Theo spends a couple years in Vegas, and he\u2019s only able to travel by Greyhound because he\u2019s fifteen.

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Aneurin Barnard and Ansel Elgort as the older Boris and Theo.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once in NYC, Theo braves the cold streets intending to go to the Barbours but ends up on Hobie\u2019s townhouse doorstep to be magically greeted by his one true love Pippa. For some reason, this is changed in the movie, sapping it somewhat of the magic of that moment, shown in the book through Theo\u2019s memories. It\u2019s possible that Theo\u2019s memories are not entirely accurate, I kept asking myself while reading the book. Lots of incredible coincidences happen, and adults are hard and unfeeling, largely oblivious to Theo\u2019s inner longings and troubles. But in the movie, we are left to take everything literally. The lyrical quality of Tartt\u2019s lovely and remarkably rich prose are utterly lost.

The mechanical, workmanlike structure of Straughan\u2019s screenplay makes use of a flashback device starting with Theo in an Amsterdam hotel room preparing for suicide. There\u2019s a sporadic voice over narration from Theo that is inconsistently used. Through flashback, the idea had to be that earlier elements of the story could be introduced, perhaps, as \u201cglimpses.\u201d The main film narrative would focus on the older Theo, and rely on hot young actor Ansel Elgort (see \u201cBaby Driver\u201d). Sadly, this short shrifts the best parts of the novel, and unfortunately, Oakes Fegley appears to be cast primarily for his facial resemblance to Elgort, because he does not make much impression here. The height difference between the two was distracting for me. Sure, it\u2019s possible he could have shot up overnight, but later this is problematic when he\u2019s reunited with Boris.

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Oakes Fedley struggles with the role of young Theo.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Part of the problem with this movie version of \u201cThe Goldfinch\u201d might be the money and level of talent involved. Clearly, producers wanted something that could play as wide as possible. And heck, it\u2019s shot by Roger Deakins, making use of the Arri Alexa digital cameras. The result looks fine, but Deakins, hot off his long overdue Oscar win for \u201cBlade Runner 2049?\u201d The rather flat, conservative, even drab images here are not good examples of Deakins\u2019 talents. And unlike the book, where Boris and Theo trip on acid and their visual psychedelic experiences are evocative, detailed, and striking, we get chuckle inducing lines of exposition. Again, perspective is sacrificed.

Capturing a novel on film is fraught with problems. Fans of the printed word will always grumble. But embodying the tone and flavor of the source inspiration is the critical component. Director Crowley and writer Straughan miss this with their adaptation. And while casting and other things can be forgiven, failing to understand why \u201cThe Goldfinch\u201d hit readers so personally is unforgivable.

That kiss is really important. It\u2019s so much more than physical, and it might not be physical at all. Laughing was never intended.

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Jonathan tries to like the movie that everyone is dogging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1754,1755,1756,1757,40,1753],"class_list":["post-7831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-adaptation","tag-ansel-elgort","tag-finn-wolfhard","tag-john-crowley","tag-novel","tag-the-goldfinch","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7843,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions\/7843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}