The Goldfinch

This American drama is based on the 2014 Pulitzer Award winning book of the same name written by Donna Tartt and published in September 2013. It is the story of a troubled boy whose childhood conflicts lead him as an adult into the world of art-forgery.

At 13 years of age, “Theo” Decker (Oakes Fegley) witnessed the killing of his mother, Audrey Decker (Hailey Wist) in a terrorist attack by bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Through the chaos of that day, he clings to a memory of a painting that hung in the Met., which he stole. It was a painting of a small bird chained to a perch: “The Goldfinch” of the film’s title. Theo takes the painting from the Met. immediately following the attack. The work of art was a small 1654 masterpiece painting by Carel Fabritius. For Theo, it remained as a permanent symbol of his mother’s tragic death, and his personal aspirations for his passage into young adulthood.

The painting was a favourite of his mother, who was taking him to the Met. to see it. Theo was told to steal it at the urging of a dying elderly man, whom he encountered as he tried to find his way out of the Museum, following the blast. The painting for which the book and film are named is from a collection in The Hague, Netherlands. Theo took the priceless painting on the urging of a  man, who made him promise to rescue it to preserve it from destruction.

Theo’s past is relevant to the viewer’s understanding of what happened. He was the son of an emotionally abusive father, Larry (Luke Wilson), and was isolated in his family. Traumatised by the terrorist attack, which occurs surprisingly very late into the movie, he was taken in as an orphan by a rich New York socialite, Samantha Barbour (Nicole Kidman), who offered him the kindness he desperately needed.

The role of Theo as a grown man is taken by Ansel Elgort, who focuses the viewer on the sorrows and tribulations of a young boy, who grows into an emotionally conflicted adult. In many ways, the film is essentially a coming-of-age story about Theo, who tries unsuccessfully to recover from extreme emotional events.

The film, like the novel, aims to connect with the heart as well as the mind, but is not successful in doing so. Theo enters the world of art forgery, and his conflicts are enormous – he succumbs to drug addiction, and the movie spends a lot of time on his homosexual and heterosexual leanings.  In multiple ways, he falls victim to the lures of a dissolute life.

The complexities of the film’s plot-line and the film’s action-narrative distract from the sharpness of the tragedy that forged Theo’s path to adulthood. As an adult, he spends his time as a frustrated antiques dealer selling furniture to people he “can’t stand”, and his conflicts stay unresolved. Towards the end of the film, the plot takes a dramatic, unexpected turn. “The Goldfinch” is stolen from Theo by someone he trusted. The eventual theft of it by Theo’s close friend, Boris (Aneurin Barnard) puts Theo in the same situation as those be has been defrauding.

A well-dressed Nicole Kidman captures the privileged look of high affluence and controlled emotional repression, and Theo is impressively acted as a young boy and as a young adult by Oakes Fegley, and Ansel Elgort, respectively. The direction by John Crowley sweeps across time and place, and jumps back and forth frequently, but erratically, between a young and an old Theo.

This is a lengthy film of many moving parts, time periods, and characters. With its complex action, it struggles to maintain an air of adventure mystery rather than allows the viewer to analyse and  explore the pain of traumatised youth. In the last half hour, however, it provides a particularly intriguing look at the complexities and betrayals of international art-forgery.

Peter W. Sheehan is Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting

Upon its release in 2013, Donna Tartt’s novel ‘The Goldfinch’ was a global bestseller, eventually receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Though I noticed its sparse but eye-catching cover on a bookshelf in my home for years, I only read it quite recently and found it absorbing but ultimately quite frustrating. His life derailed after the death of his mother, the protagonist Theo lives in a state of arrested development, barely progressing as a character beyond his growing tolerance for drugs and alcohol as he grows up across its epic near-800-page length. Tartt’s writing was undeniably compelling and I made short work of the book, however I was pulled along by the promise of some grand conclusion that never materialised. If you for whatever reason believed that an adaptation of this sprawling, unsatisfying story would be anything but, then I must be the bearer of bad news. ‘The Goldfinch’ is undeniably well-crafted and -acted, but, much like the painting at its heart, it is a thing of beauty without a beating heart.

The book and film are named for a painting by the painter Fabritius, a promising student of the Dutch master Rembrandt who was survived by only about a dozen of his works when he was killed by a factory explosion in 1654. 13-year-old Theo Decker (Oakes Fegley, very good) comes across the titular work while visiting a New York museum with his mother (Hailey Wist). After his mother is tragically killed by a terror attack at the museum, Theo staggers away from the aftermath clutching two things: a ring given to him by a dying man, and ‘The Goldfinch’.

What follows in Peter Straughan’s faithfully adapted screenplay is a strange odyssey of sorts, as Theo first goes to live with the wealthy family of his schoolmate Andy (Ryan Foust), under the cool gaze of Andy’s aloof but compassionate mother Samantha (Nicole Kidman, every inch the affluent host). The ring entrusted into his possession leads Theo to an antique dealership now run by gruff but kind furniture restorer James “Hobie” Hobart (Jeffrey Wright), whose business partner Welton Blackwell (Robert Joy) was the old man killed alongside Theo’s mother in the attack. Hobie now cares for Blackwell’s niece Pippa (Aimee Laurence), a young girl with flaming red hair who caught Theo’s eye just before the explosion. Though Theo feels inexorably drawn to Pippa and has been taken under Hobie’s wing, not even Samantha can stand in the way of Theo’s absentee father (Luke Wilson, well cast as a shaggy ne’er-do-well) and his girlfriend Xandra (Sarah Paulson) whisking him off to Las Vegas.

It’s in Vegas that the wheels of the story really start to spin in place, as Theo and a new friend, Russian ex-pat and all-round terrible influence Boris (Finn Wolfhard, impressive), bereft of responsible adult supervision and productive pastimes in the Nevada desert, start experimenting with drugs and alcohol. While a mature Theo (now played by Ansel Elgort, arguably on career best form) eventually ends up back in New York working alongside Hobie in the antiques trade, Boris’ (now Aneurin Barnard) descent into a life of crime soon comes to affect them both, a development that has more to do with ‘The Goldfinch’ than first meets the eye.

Shot by master cinematographer Roger Deakins, ‘The Goldfinch’ is a generously budgeted adaptation and it looks it. From the way that Deakins captures remarkable soft details in the contrast between light and shadows, to its handsome New York setting, the film looks terrific. The costuming by Kasia Walicka-Maimone is also exceptional, convincingly dressing every actor to match both the character and the performance. There’s nothing obviously wrong with the filmmaking, yet overall ‘The Goldfinch’ feels lifeless and cold, its drama as untethered and listless as its protagonist.

It’s worth noting that Irish director John Crowley previously found great success in adapting a renowned literary work with 2015’s ‘Brooklyn’, based on the Colm Tóibín novel of the same name. This goes some way to suggesting that, like with any work of art, there’s something arcane and fleeting in the making of a good film. Here, despite the safety net of its beloved source material, a talented cast and crew, and Warner Brothers’ deep pockets, Crowley just can’t convince this goldfinch to take flight.

Callum Ryan is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting.