Greetings again from the darkness. The challenge after watching this movie is deciding whether it needed more time or less. With a run time of two-and-a-half hours, that may seem like a ludicrous question, but Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize (fiction) winning 2013 novel was almost 800 pages long, covering many characters and spanning more than a decade. What to include and what to omit surely generated many discussions between director John Crowley (the excellent BROOKLYN, 2015) and screenwriter Peter Straughan (Oscar nominated for the fantastic TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, 2011).

13 year old Theo (Oakes Fegley) is visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother when a bomb explodes leaving Theo dazed in the rubble and his mother dead. An encounter with an injured stranger causes Theo to take a painting and flee the museum. Theo proceeds to hide the artwork as the family of one of his schoolmates takes him in. The painting is "The Goldfinch" by Rembrandt's pupil Carel Fabritius. In the first of many parallels separated by time, we learn Fabritius was killed (and most of his work destroyed) in an explosion. In fact, it's these parallels and near-mirror-images are what make the story so unique and interesting ... and so difficult to fit into a film.

When Theo's long-lost drunken shyster father (Luke Wilson) shows up with his equally smarmy girlfriend Xandra (Sarah Paulson),they head to the recession-riddled suburbs of Las Vegas. It's here where Theo meets Boris (Finn Wolfhard, Richie from the two IT movies),a Ukranian emigrant living with his dad (yet another parallel). The two boys become friends, partaking in drugs, alcohol, and shoplifting. Another tragedy puts Theo on the run. He finds himself back in New York, where he takes up with Hobie (Jeffrey Wright),the partner of the stranger from the museum.

All of this is told from the perspective of young adult Theodore Decker, played by Ansel Elgort. We see him bunkered in a hotel room contemplating suicide. The story we watch shows how his life unfolded and landed him in this particular situation. And it's here where we find the core of the story. Circumstances in life guide our actions, and in doing so, reveal our true character. Theo carries incredible guilt over his mother, and his actions with Hobie, regardless of the reasons for doing so, lead him to a life that is not so dissimilar to that of adult Boris (Aneurin Barnard, DUNKIRK) when their paths cross again.

Other supporting work is provided by Ashleigh Cummings as Pippa, the object of Theo's desire, Willa Fitzgerald (played young Claire in "House of Cards") as Kitsey Barbour, Theo's fiancé, as well as Denis O'Hare, Peter Jacobson, and Luke Kleintank. As a special treat, Oscar winner Nicole Kidman plays Mrs. Barbour in what feels like two different performances. When Theo is young, she is the cold, standoffish surrogate mother who takes him in; however when older Theo returns, her own personal tragedies have turned her into a warm bundle of emotions in need of pleasantry. It's sterling work from an accomplished actress.

The segments of the film that resonate deepest are those featuring Oakes Fegley as young Theo. Fegley was so good in the criminally underseen WONDERSTRUCK (2017),and here he conveys so much emotion despite maintaining a stoic demeanor. It's rare to see such a layered performance from a young actor. Of course the film is helped immensely by the unequaled work of cinematographer Roger Deakins. Mr. Deakins finally won his first Oscar last year in his 14th nomination. Trevor Gureckis provides the music to fit the various moods and the two time periods. All of these elements work to give the film the look of an Oscar contending project; however, we never seem to connect with the older Theo, which leaves a hollow feeling to a story that should be anything but. Instead we are left to play "spot the parallels" ... a fun game ... but not engaging like we would hope.

Let me state from the outset that I have never read Donna Tartt's novel, so my criticisms of this movie are not those of the "loved the book, hated the film" school of thought. A woman named Audrey Decker is killed in a terrorist bomb attack at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The film is not about the terrorists- we never learn who they are or what their motives are- but about Audrey's thirteen-year-old son Theo. He is with his mother when she is killed, but survives, and staggers out of the museum holding a painting, "The Goldfinch" by Carel Fabritius. (Tartt chose this painting because of its history. Fabritius was killed in a gunpowder explosion in 1654, which also destroyed his workshop and many of his paintings. "The Goldfinch" was in the building at the time, but survived).

Audrey was divorced from her deadbeat alcoholic husband, Larry, who never showed any interest in his son, so Theo is placed with the Barbours, the family of one of his friends. He takes "The Goldfinch" with him and keeps it in his room; the museum authorities never make any attempt to trace it, assuming that it had been destroyed in the bombing. He bonds well with the family, who share his interest in art and antiques, and they consider adopting him, but before they can do so, Larry and his girlfriend Xandra reappear, reclaim Theo, and take him back to their home in the suburbs of Las Vegas. While living there, Theo makes a friend in Boris, the son of a Ukrainian immigrant, who will play an important role in his later life. After Larry is killed in a car crash, Theo runs away from Las Vegas and returns to New York, where he is taken in by Hobie, an antique dealer and restorer whose acquaintance he made while living with the Barbours. Theo's love of antiques increases, and when he becomes an adult he goes into the antiques trade, becoming Hobie's partner. "The Goldfinch" will play an important part in all his subsequent adventures.

The critical consensus on the Rotten Tomatoes website describes the film as "Beautifully filmed yet mostly inert", but the word "inert" does not seem to me to be appropriate. The above synopsis is arranged in chronological order, but this is not the order in which events happen in the film itself, as its timeline has a particularly complex structure. The word I would use to describe it is not "inert" but "frenetic"; it jumps all over the place, from flashback to flash-forward to yet another flashback, making the story difficult, and at times near-impossible to follow. My synopsis also simplifies the plot considerably, omitting as it does Theo's two romantic attachments and the confusing thriller-style ending which involves Theo and his old friend Boris tangling with a drugs gang. (Don't ask why).

The film does have some positive aspects. There are also some interesting contrasts between two different Americas, the world of the Barbours, literate, cultured and metropolitan Manhattanites and that of the philistine Larry and Xandra who live in a largely deserted housing development on the edge of the desert, a long way from anything that looks like civilisation. Director John Crowley seems to be using the emptiness and barrenness of the desert landscapes as a metaphor for the emptiness and barrenness of their lives.

The "beautifully filmed" part of the Rotten Tomatoes verdict strikes me as accurate, and there are some good acting performances, especially from Oakes Fegley as the young Theo Jeffrey Wright as his mentor Hobie and Nicole Kidman (a star whose undoubted talent for acting is not always matched by a talent for picking the right films) in a supporting role as Samantha Barbour, the woman who almost becomes Theo's adopted mother and who nurtures his interest in the arts. (I was less taken by Ansel Elgort as the adult Theo or by some of the other actors). The film's few virtues, however, were never enough in my opinion to compensate for its manifest faults. 5/10

A terrorist bombing explodes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. 13-year-old Theo Decker's mother is killed and in the confusion, he steals a small painting. It's an important painting from a lesser known artist and everyone assumes that it has been destroyed in the explosion. Theo is sent to live with family friend Mrs. Barbour (Nicole Kidman) and her family until his problematic father Larry (Luke Wilson) and girlfriend Xandra (Sarah Paulson) show up. They take him to a desolate suburban community where Theo befriends troubled teen Boris (Finn Wolfhard). He runaway back to NYC to antique dealer Hobie (Jeffrey Wright) and his young charge Pippa who survived the bombing. As a young man, Theo (Ansel Elgort) starts working for Hobie.

This is adapted from a book which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize. It's apparent quite early on that it's book. This is beautifully shot by Roger Deakins but it's told by a high school C-student struggling to write a book report. There are things right off the bat that is murky for no good reason. It rushes. There is a lot to stuff into the movie and it intends to stuff it all in there whether it fits or not. At a certain point, I come to the conclusion that the structure is wrong and the material may not fit a movie which is already too long at over two hours. Despite all the talent involved in this project, this is fundamentally flawed.