9/16/2023 0 Comments Roger deakins true film sticklerWe spend 50 pages getting to know Audrey Decker, both through Theo’s description and through her actions that morning. In the book, the first thing we get is a detailed retelling of the last day Theo spent with his mother - the day of the museum bombing. It’s in these crucial moments that the film makes its biggest mistake, and unfortunately it never recovers. While the pieces that make up the story are basically the same, the order in which they’re told is significantly altered for the film, starting here: in the film’s first five minutes. This is where the film and the book diverge. We get the impression that his life is in ruins, and then we jump backwards in time to find out what led him to this point. He tells us that he’s just had a dream about his mother, who died when he was young. We meet our narrator Theodore Decker in his mid-20s, distraught in an Amsterdam hotel room for reasons unknown to us. The film begins the same way the book does - with a framing narrative. ( Minor spoilers for the book & film ahead.) For me, the reason comes down to one important misstep, and that’s the way this film handles the relationship between Theo and his mother. But the film falls short over and over again in a way that’s hard to define, except to say what many reviews already have: it feels flat. In director John Crowley’s The Goldfinch, most of the elements of novel actually do remain intact, if condensed for the sake of time. Faithfulness to source material and quality of an adaptation are not mutually exclusive. Honestly, I’d rather a film cut more from the plot if it’ll make the story work better on screen. However, I am by no means a stickler when it comes to adaptations. So, yeah, I went into the theater having adored the book, which already put the movie at a disadvantage. If there’s anything good to come out of this movie’s existence, its that it gave me - and a lot of other people, I’m sure - an excuse to read a novel which, despite its page count and intimidating Pulitzer prize-winning status, is an utterly absorbing read. Just kidding, I obviously read the book for the sake of reading something by Donna Tartt, an author I’ve admired since The Secret History! Still, I did wait until a few months before the film’s release to finally cross the 2013 novel off of my TBR list. You’re telling me I read an 800 page long book for this shit? When the negative reviews started rolling in for The Goldfinch a few weeks ago, I was pretty bummed.
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