The Goldfinch Review

Director John Crowley’s adaptation of Donna Tartt’s globally acclaimed bestseller The Goldfinch squanders its talented cast and quickly becomes a film that’s all style and no substance. The flat and uninspired story annihilates any thrilling or intriguing elements in favor of unraveling something that comes off as disjointed and clunky. The attempt from screenwriter Peter Straughan to adhere to the vastness of the source material ultimately suffocates the films storytelling ability completely, resulting in an adaptation that’s structurally messy and bland. The sweeping direction from Crowley and the always stunning cinematography from Roger Deakins helps give the film a somewhat stylistically whimsical aesthetic, but the confusing execution of story elements leaves The Goldfinch lacking brevity.

The Goldfinch tells the story of Theodore Decker and his life following the death of his mother from a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The tragedy changes Theodore’s life completely, forcing him into a new home with the family of his estranged friend Andy Barbour. Through all of this, Theo keeps hold of something from the day his mother died, a beautiful painting of a bird chained to its perch titled The Goldfinch. However, the obstacles and challenges in Theo’s anxious life begin to threaten the painting that he treasures more than anything.

It’s far from a disaster, but the sloppiness in its array of storytelling elements becomes far too distracting as the film slowly unfolds. The clear inability to translate the deeply layered emotions and motives throughout can become extremely extraneous far too often, dissipating the opportunity to rely on the skills of the stellar cast to add any form of fitting complexity into their performances or characters. Instead, The Goldfinch insists on adding more onto an already jarringly difficult story to care for, eventually becoming an overbearing film that feels shallow and flawed.

The commendable and noteworthy aspects of The Goldfinch arise only from the clearly thoughtful approaches to direction and cinematography from Crowley and Deakins, who create wonderful scenery through Crowley’s spacious camera movement and Deakins immaculately soft palette that compliments and heightens nearly every visual element into creating entire scenes that feel atmospheric and full of personality and tone.

Overall, the attempt to simplify and condense the sprawling and deeply layered narrative from Donna Tartt’s bestseller comes off lost and lacking heart. Despite being wrapped in gorgeous lighting and thoughtfully shot, the complete lack of focus everywhere else results in a convoluted and forgettable film.

The beautiful aesthetics can’t save John Crowley's The Goldfinch from it's messy and unfocused adaptation, resulting in a pretty film that completely lacks weight.

Produced By: Warner Bros. Pictures
Runtime: 149 minutes
Rating: R