THE GOLDFINCH
US, 2019, 149 minutes, Colour.
Ansel Elgort, Oakes Fegley, Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Wilson, Sarah Paulson, Denis O’ Hare, Aneurin Barnard, Finn Wolfhard, Willa Fitzgerald, Ashleigh Cummings, Robert Joy, Boyd Gaines.
Directed by John Crowley.
This is a cinema piece of contemporary Americana. It is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt, a book of over 700 pages condensed to a film of 2 ½ hours. Perhaps response to The Goldfinch will be similar to responses to well-liked novels. Some will decry the treatment and the omissions. Some will praise the ability of bringing the characters and main themes to the screen. And these responses have been those of both critics and the audiences.
This review is based on the film itself, the reviewer not having read the novel or knowing much about it.
So, a 2 ½ hour American drama with some interesting and arresting characters, and a cast which offers strong performances and interpretations of their characters. In one sense, the story is small, focusing on a family and some friends. In another sense, each of them is symbolic of aspect of American life.
There are two time eras in the film. And they are intercut throughout. The Goldfinch is the story of a boy, Theo Decker, whose mother is killed in a terrorist explosion in a Museum. The early part of the film, while introducing the older Theo, is concerned about the boy and his story. The great advantage of this part of the film and its impact is the performance by the young actor, Oakes Fegley, suffering bewilderment and grief at the death of his mother, always blaming himself, a well-mannered boy who is taken in by the family of a school friend where he finds some consolation, friendship, love.
It comes as something of a shock when his absentee father, recovering alcoholic, turns up with a girlfriend and Theo has to go to live with them out west – but, he is able to survive the disruption and becomes very friendly with a young Ukrainian migrants from school, Boris, who leads him astray in terms of recklessness, drugs and drinking, rebellious behaviour…
So, with this background, we then get to know the older Theo, played by Ansel Elgort. Earlier we had seen Theo with a friendly furniture restorer whom Theo had got to know after the explosion and contact with an art dealer, wounded and dying who urges him to take a painting from the rubble to the furniture restorer, Theo making friends with the little girl who had accompanied the dealer.
So, after an immersion in the life of a rather affluent family in New York, an immersion in the desert suburbs in the Western states, we return to follow Theo’s adult life, of the prim and proper, bespectacled restored furniture salesman (drug-taking) and the complications of threats of exposure about the painting, which is The Goldfinch, from an insistent businessman, his rediscovering the family that cared for him in the past, the possibilities of marriage, visits from the young girl from the terrorist attack. And, the reappearance of Boris and some explanations of how The Goldfinch was at the centre of so many of Theo’s anxieties and troubles.
Oaks Fegley, as has been said, is persuasive as the young Theo. Ansel Elgort is somewhat enigmatic as the older Theo. And there are fine performances from Jeffrey Wright as the restorer, Luke Wilson as the unreliable father, Sarah Paulson as his rather slatternly girlfriend, and Nicole Kidman as the mother who took Theo in, looking immaculately presentable in her younger days and rather matronly in the latter part of the film. The director is the Irishman, John Crowley, who made another American saga, Brooklyn.
1. The title? Painting, the bird in close-up? The painting is history, Holland in the 17th century? The reputation of the artist, the artist’s death? The painting preserved, the terrorist attack in the Museum, the painting survival, then taken by Theo, the consequences?
2. A piece of Americana, the wide scope? Characters and interactions? The original novel, Pulitzer Prize, its size? The adaptation for the screen, the drama and melodrama, resolutions? The running time?
3. New York City, the museum, Hobie and his furniture restoration studio, apartments, streets? The contrast with the West, the encroaching desert, the suburban homes, the banks taking them back, schools, interiors? Amsterdam, the hotels and bars? The musical score and its range?
4. The structure of the film, the framework of the present, going back into the past, the two actors for Theo? Intercut, sense of continuity? Each period, costumes, decor, moods? Dreams?
5. The original situation, the Museum, Theo outside, his mother’s death, the terrorist, the consequences? The indication of the Goldfinch theme?
6. Theo, in himself, his poise, presentation and manners, grief, blaming himself? His friendship with Andy, the decision that he should go to Andi’s family? The mother, her poise, her care, the father, the meals, discipline, the rebellious son, the two siblings and their taunting Theo? Theo adapting to this life?
7. The arrival of his father, the separation from his wife, his drinking, Xandra as his new girlfriend, her vulgar touch? Theo’s reaction, living with them, packing, going to the house, the Western states, the desert, the isolation? With his father, his father and the betting, probabilities? Bonding? Xandra and her presence in the house, Theo not liking her, the local work?
8. School, the teachers, the meeting with Boris, their talking, the friendship, sharing, secrets? Boris and the Ukraine, his story, his brutal father, the father’s absence? Sharing, the issue of drugs, drinking, the bonds, the Thanksgiving celebration?
9. Theo and his father, his father wanting money, the business proposition, getting Theo to phone the executor, money not forthcoming? His anger, in the car, his death? Xandra’s reaction?
10. Theo, with Boris, his, coming home, getting the news, his reaction? His decision to leave? Wanting Boris to come with him, Boris’s hesitation? Packing The Goldfinch in the paper, his keeping it and treasuring it, the bus and his travel?
11. Hobie, sympathetic, furniture restoration, testing Theo and his recognition, the explanation of originals and reproductions? His staying with Hobie? The screenplay passing over his teenage years, college? His working with Hobie, salesman for the restored furniture? Yet his taking of the drugs?
12. The businessman, the puzzle about the painting, accused of selling the fake, the blackmail about the picture?
13. Hobie, his character, the link with the dealer and the terrorist attack? Theo going to him? The link with Pippa?
14. The chance meeting with and his older brother, meeting their mother, reunited with the family? The sad story of Andy, mental illness, his collapse? The mother’s grief, having become older after being a woman of great presence in poise?
15. Pippa, the past, the connection with Hobie, her going to England, her visit with her partner, the later return to New York, the sadness, Theo and his attraction?
16. Meeting Kitsey again, her change of heart, having taunted Theo in the past? In love, the buildup to the engagement, the social? Theo seeing her kiss his former friend? The confrontation at the party, her reaction, Theo and the news about the painting and his leaving?
17. Theo and his drugs, the phone call for supply, going to the bar, the encounter with Boris? Boris and his explanation, the drug deals in Miami, news of the painting, it is being used as collateral? Theo and his shock, grief at unwrapping and finding the painting gone?
18. Boris, the suggestion to go to Holland, meeting with the crooked dealers, the confrontation, money issues, the shooting? Giving the police the information about the headquarters, the recovery of other artworks, regaining The Goldfinch?
19. The returning home? The painting given to the Museum? His taking the mother and their touring the Museum, memories of his being with his mother, the memories of the dealer wounded in the explosion, rescuing The Goldfinch, urging to go to Hobie?
20. The finale, the two couples, the past and the future?
