Criticism of the Goldfinch | 411MANIA

Directed by: John Crowley
Written by: Peter Straughan; Based on Donna Tartt's book
Runtime: 149 minutes
MPAA ranking: R rated

Ansel Elgort – Theodore Decker
Oakes Fegley – Young Theodore
Nicole Kidman – Mrs. Barbour
Jeffrey Wright Hobie
Ashleigh Cummings – Pippa
Willa Fitzgerald – Kitsey Barbour
Aneurin Barnard – Boris Pavlikovsky
Finn Wolfhard – Young Boris
Ryan Foust – Andy Barbour
Luke Wilson – Larry Decker
Sarah Paulson – Xandra
Boyd Gaines – Mr Barbour
Hailey Wist – Audrey Decker

Brooklyn John Crowley's latest dramatic production, The Goldfinch, arrives this month, with the kind permission of Warner Bros. Although the film enjoys an impressive and impressive distribution and some high-quality cinematographic visuals from the director of photography Roger Deakins, this film is not very disjointed, too long, dull, high level experience.

The goldfinch follows the young Theodore Decker (Fegley), who loses his mother in a terrorist attack while on his way to the Met. Somewhere in the chaos of tragedy, Theo has grabbed a valuable painting from the museum, the eponymous "The Goldfinch" of Carel Fabritius, hiding it. Once his father is gone and his mother left, Theo is taken in charge by the family of the upper class, the Barbours, and mainly by the patriarch, Mrs. Barbour (Kidman), who involuntarily puts Theo on the path of drug addiction.

After a while, Theo begins to adapt to life with Barbour and befriends his son Andy (Foust). He is also in contact with the antiquarian, Hobie Hobart (Wright), business partner of another victim, Theo, met during the attack. He is also captivated by the young Pippa, a young girl from Theo, an aspiring musician, wounded during the attack. Unfortunately, he quickly retired from his high culture when his father, Larry (Wilson), who lost his life, returns to restore custody of his son. Poor Theo is then immersed in a miserable existence, fending for himself in a desolate desert neighborhood near Las Vegas with his abusive, alcoholic and compulsive father and his girlfriend, Xandra (Paulson), with a X. The only one Theo's life line is his new Ukrainian classmate, Boris (Wolfhard), who introduces him to the wonders of the stoned.

Finally, the story becomes an adult, Theodore (Elgort), who grew up to become a business partner with Hobie and reconnect with his former family, the Barbours. Unfortunately, Theo's drug addiction is getting worse and the secret he's long been hiding from his stolen paint is about to turn out.

Adapted from an award-winning book and gathering a cast of esteemed talents, such as Oscar winner, Nicole Kidman, The goldfinch is resolutely ambitious in presenting a cinematographic version of haute cuisine. And although some of the ingredients are certainly present, the execution is not. The goldfinch is a film with grandiose goals, but his attempts at emotional rebound fall incredibly flat.

Crowley and writer Peter Straughan adapt an unconventional and anti-linear narrative to The goldfinchbut it is the quintessence of cinematographic indulgence. Some of the flaws may be inherent in the novel, but the story is incredibly incoherent, swaying between Theo's adulthood, his youth with the Barbour and his passage with his father. An unfair narrative subplot involving the revelation of Theo's theft is revealed and adds conflict and suspense in the second half. However, it is totally inconsequential and later ignored unceremoniously.

In fact, the film contains a very late thriller element that runs very clumsily. As a result, these disparate elements never really merge and serve to improve the picture in a profound way, despite John Crowley's lofty goals. Instead, The goldfinch comes as rather messy.

The goldfinch strangely reminds Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice. While this may sound like a ridiculous comparison, the results are similar as these are two films that strive to be seriously dark and "artistic," but the end result seems empty. Although history spends so much time with Theo, his voiceover narration guides the audience, but he never turns into a real character. His mother, tragically misled by Theo, is the subject of her cult, but she never really becomes a character. She is more or less the engine of Theo's guilt. Theo's guilt and the misery of living with his bad-paying father led him to drug addiction. And while the description of teenage drug use by the film is a little gloomy, it is more of a way of bragging about the darkness of the film than of an honest description of drug use by young people. youth.

To add to the rather disparate style of the film, the last act pays tribute to the importance of classical works and paintings and the reason for their existence. This moral message is clumsy since it seems to be coming out of the left field. The whole film, Crowley and Straughan, tells another story about the young man's personal tragedy and explains why it led to a life of fraud and drug abuse. This sends a rather mixed message because, based on the first half of the film, Theo has hardly been called a premeditated brain thief. He was probably the victim of a concussion and in shock after a traumatic event. Anyone in this situation would have trouble thinking clearly and having a vicious mind about it.

At one point, Crowley describes the young Theo rocking and squeezing the painting in a sort of fetal position. While the scene is unattractive melodramatic, the presentation suggests that painting is his security blanket and a last memory of his deceased mother who he is desperately trying to keep. This does not seem to be a malicious flight.

The most attractive aspect of The goldfinch is his casting. It is made up of many familiar faces, including underrated veterans such as Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright and Sarah Paulson. Ansel Elgort is certainly a talented actor, but his performance lacks a real emotional core on which to base himself. But the characters go into these deep, prolix and long monologues that seem dramatic, but lack weight. It's as if Crowley had made a film composed of reels of assembly for the seasons of awards. Yes, there is teen drug use, abusive relationships, cursed lovers who can not be together. All these deeply dramatic elements are there. Crowley tries to present them dramatically, but they never come together as a coherent whole. That said, the actors are clearly dedicated to the subject.

The young Theo, Oakes Fegley, is certainly struggling with a very difficult role, dealing with fairly intense topics. However, Fegley and Boris's more recent version, Finn Wolfhard, adopting a clumsy and thick Russian accent, are never really convincing. For example, there is a scene where Theo is confronted by another child who has apparently caused him trouble with the principal, which indirectly caused the tragic visit to Theo's museum and his mother. Theo goes wild and poses in a manner reminiscent of UFC fighter "Iceman" Chuck Liddell. It's weird and weird. And the secondary plot with the other child never goes anywhere in the note, much like many other minor intrigues in the movie.

We can not say much about the exceptional cinematography of Roger Deakins' film. At the very least, the film is beautifully designed and shot in a semi-abstract way. At one point, it looks like a bird or goldfinch forms in the dusty, wind-blown soil outside Theo's miserable homeland in the Nevada desert.

The goldfinch touches a lot of things between grief and loss, and the guilt that stems from survival to Theo's traumatic experience. And yet, despite the essential film built around it, the film ends up settling with this strange message of works of art. Is this really the important lesson that Theo had to learn? Maybe Theo really needed to know was that what had happened to him was an insane and tragic event. It was not his fault. He has nothing to do with that and it's his own guilt.

The goldfinch submits the public to two and a half hours of totally unsatisfactory moral resolution. The finished act is presented as a more elaborate narrative work than that described later in the film.

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