The Goldfinch
Directed by: John Crowley
Runtime: 149 minutes
I’m pretty ready to concede to the fact that Ansel Elgort just can’t act. He’s not completely unwatchable but so far every performance I’ve seen him attempt is just emotionally constipated, and his work in The Goldfinch confirms this. This is one of the many issues in adapting a novel to screen—it’s hard to convey the emotional brevity of a situation when engaging characters are met with wet-blanket performances. The Goldfinch is an award-winning novel written by Donna Tartt that was published back in 2013. It most notably won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and if that’s not enough of a reason to adapt this book into a film… then I don’t know what is. Admittedly, I have not read the book myself. I never heard of it before the movie came out, and I don’t get paid enough to do that amount of research (take that as a hint to give me a raise, FilmBunker). With that out of the way, let’s dive in!
The Goldfinch is the story of Theodore Decker, a thirteen-year-old boy who’s just survived a bombing attack while at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His mother, however, wasn’t so lucky and she, unfortunately, passes away. In the midst of the dust and debris, Theo tries to search for his mum and he also decides to take a famous painting, The Goldfinch. Soon after the attack, Theo gets taken in by an aristocratic family, then he gets taken away to his father’s house in Las Vegas. Some other things happen, friendships are made and families are broken. Then, oddly, in the last thirty minutes, The Goldfinch turns into Goldeneye and suddenly we’re going on a globetrotting painting stealing crusade while shooting up some no-name thugs.
I may have haphazardly summarised the film towards the end there, but truth be told, this plot is such a mess. It has the setup of a crime film, then it becomes a coming-of-age story for a while. A romance subplot takes place for a few scenes, and then it finishes as a crime caper again? It feels like they tried to come at this movie from too many different angles, leaving it a confusing mess. It doesn’t really know what story it wants to tell. The end result feels like you’re watching three separate movies jammed together, which makes it tonally very awkward.
On the other hand, the film’s cinematography is actually quite good. There’s plenty of interesting lighting and camerawork used to make seemingly normal, mundane spaces, feel far more unique and even otherworldly at times. The extreme set changes throughout also helps to keep you visually engaged. Shifting from old, elegant New York parlours to the vast barren sands of the Nevada desert is wonderful. The score compliments this all perfectly as well. The film does move and work as a film should… it all just feels empty.
At times, it feels like The Goldfinch is biting off far more than it can chew. It tries to tick off as many events and themes from the book that it can (I assume), so not enough time is given to explore any of these themes further and give the film any meaningful depth. As an example, Theo enters a downward spiral of under-age drinking, smoking and other substance abuse, but this never gets developed or explored to any meaningful capacity. There is a sort of climax to this near the end of the film, but it doesn’t end up making an impact because of the complete lack of consistency in the plot’s stakes. The romances also share this same fate, fizzling off into nothingness. Characters get introduced but don’t get enough time to develop themselves on screen. So when it goes in for that emotional uppercut, it misses. The whole experience ends up feeling flat.
In terms of acting, the whole cast is generally fine and they deliver decent performances throughout (except for, you know, Elgort). Though there are some that stand out as above average. Luke Wilson portraying Theo’s deadbeat dad is excellent. He brings forth some enthralling scenes that really take you by surprise. Oakes Fegley as young Theo is also great to watch, though there are some inconsistencies with Theo’s characterisation when going between Fegley’s and Ansel Elgort’s performances. Young Theo seems very smart but he also acts rashly to many situations. You can forgive this though since he’s just a teenager. Older Theo, however, comes off as pompous, arrogant and generally unlikeable. The film tries to convey older Theo as this poor, tortured soul that’s trapped by his own guilt, but you end up not really caring. When the film switches between these two performances, it’s hard to bridge the gap and believe that they are, in fact, the same character.
In one word, The Goldfinch is inconsistent. From its plot and themes to its characterisations, the whole experience is a cluttered mess of random colours hurled onto some canvas (though that is what I usually think to myself whenever I go to an art gallery, so maybe this is just trying to be an allegory for modern art and pretention). My only guess to why this could be is that perhaps the novel was too complex to adapt into a film, and if any major themes or events were to be left out, it may not have done the source material justice. We are left with a film that is merely a shadow of its former self and if you, like me, have never read its source material, you’ll be left with nothing but a lack of care and a wasted two-and-a-half hours.
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