Tropic Sprockets / The Goldfinch

By Ian Brockway

Donna Tartt’s gripping novel “The Goldfinch” comes to the screen directed by John Crowley (Brooklyn) with mixed results. It boasts wondrous cinematography by Roger Deakins and some solid acting by Finn Wolfhard and Oakes Fegley, but is rife with flashbacks that are muddled and melodrama that is unrealistic and heavy.

Theo (Oakes Fegley) is a young preppy boy seeming born in a Brooks Brothers suit. On a whim, he accompanies his mother on a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A bomb goes off.

Theo lives with the Barbours. Nicole Kidman and Boyd Gaines play the robotic foster parents. The days are difficult for Theo but he likes their son, Andy (Ryan Foust) who bears a resemblance to young Alvy in “Annie Hall.”

After a time, Theo is sent to live with his macho abusive father (Luke Wilson) and his escort wife (Sarah Paulson) in the desert of Las Vegas that looks like Mars. The only bright spot is Theo’s friendship with Boris, (Wolfhard) a goth Ukrainian kid that hates the sun and likes LSD.

Theo’s father becomes angry and unbearable. Theo resolves to go to New York City to return a rare ring given to him by Welty (Robert Joy), an antique dealer and bombing victim.

Little Theo has nowhere to go. By chance, he comes across a shop run by Hobie (Jeffrey Wright) and they become partners in business.

Hobie has no idea that Theo has a rare Trompe l’oeil painting, deliriously offered to him by Welty, near death.

Theo has urges to return the art but does not, associating the painting with his mother.

This theft along with a Vicodin habit started by encouragement from Boris, is Theo’s downfall.

This criminal aspect of the film is its most intriguing aspect, bringing to mind the seedy side of the well-to-do and its moral decay as depicted in the characters of Tom Ripley and Dorian Gray. Here, it is Theo’s passivity more than anything else that creates his demon.

As the film progresses, however, the happenstance is thick with sentiment. Theo’s childhood crush Pippa (Ashleigh Cummings) just so happens to live with Hobie and Boris is just sitting at the bar when Theo is looking for a drug score.

There are multiple upon multiple flashbacks, so many that it becomes extremely hard to follow. At one point Boris is severely injured but by the next scene there is no mention of this and Boris says the painting is securely found. Theo and Boris crisscross the globe within minutes. Such a medley of locations will confound even the most seasoned of le Carre’s fans and there is little payoff.

The performances (especially during the child segments) are solid and compelling as are the Highsmithic and Wilden touches. But with its awkward flashbacks and soggy melodrama, with everyone entering the film at the apropos Hollywood moment, “The Goldfinch” chirps a somewhat routine melody.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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