Review of The Goldfinch (2019) by Winchester7 — 07 Mar 2021

The first act showed the promise of the premise. Ansel Elgort and the actor playing the thirteen-year-old version of him did a decent enough job with the characters. However, I do have to point out that this is not an active protagonist that we were dealing with. Theo Dekker just let stuff happen to him and there were no attempts made by the filmmaker to try and make him active. For instance, in the scene where Theo was being blackmailed by his client to get the painting that was supposedly destroyed in the explosion that killed his dear mother, there were no scenes to show what Theo was doing to either do everything he could to protect the painting he had on him or any attempts made by Theo to do anything that would fight for the girl he was interested in. He just stood by and watched it happen.

As for the inciting incident, that never really happened and even if there was one, one could not be identified. The film dragged along for 2 hrs and 19 minutes straight.

What might have been better and exciting if this was a true adaption of a book is that Theo shouldn't have been in possession of the painting this entire time. It should have been set up in a way that Theo would be chasing it.