The Goldfinch (2019) - Stars gleam in affected Crowley adaptation mishap

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+ Career-Killer of the Year: John Crowley 

 

Young co-star Oakes Fegley in a jump in black space outlines this striking poster for John Crowley's The Goldfinch

13 year-old Theo gets taken in by a wealthy New-Yorker family, after his mother dies in a terrorist attack in an art museum. Theo goes on to have an unusual adolescence.

 

The Goldfinch is written by Peter Straughan (Sixty Six (2006)), adapting the same-titled 2013 novel by Donna Tartt (The Secret History (1992)), and directed by Irish master filmmaker John Crowley (Intermission (2003).

An impressive cast, - including but not limited to Nicole Kidman (Happy Feet (2006)) as the adopting mother and Jeffrey Wright (Monster (2018)) as an antique specialist/mentor to Theo, - lures, along with a plush production, into this literary universe. Theo meets us first as an incredibly depressed-looking teenage boy, (played by Oakes Fegley (Boardwalk Empire (2014, TV-series))), who is into classical literature and art (...), but Fegley later proves livelier and capable enough in scenes in Nevada. Here he has good scenes with Finn Wolfhard (It (2017)) and Luke Wilson (Henry Poole Is Here (2008)) and Sarah Paulson (Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)), the latter two good as his bad father and his unappealing girlfriend. Ansel Elgort (Allegiant (2016)) does alright as the adult Theo, when the story takes a turn and becomes odder: Kidman speaks mysteriously to her now adult Theo, who was in her care for a very short period of time, and she talks to him as if they enjoyed many years together. 

Aneurin Barnard (Thirteen (2016, miniseries)) is a looker, but the story, which now circles around a stolen painting of the titular goldfinch, and their mission to steal it back, never becomes successful for the third act of the long film. The Goldfinch nevertheless still has plenty of drama and interesting performances to keep my attention perched over it.

Related posts:

John Crowley: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Brooklyn (2015) - Ronan captivates in Crowley's exquisite, soaring period romance drama masterpiece 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 44-49 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 9.9 mil. $

= Box office disaster (returned between 0.22 - 0.20 times its cost)

[The Goldfinch premiered 8 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 149 minutes. Wolfhard was paid 65k $ for his performance in the film. Shooting took place in New York, New Mexico and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from January - April 2018. A test screening 6 months prior to the release gave theatrical distributor Warner Bros. fears the film might bomb, and its marketing budget was consequently cut "dramatically." It opened #8 to a 2.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 5.3 mil. $ (53.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia with 1.1 mil. $ (11.1 %) and the UK with 0.9 mil. $ (9.1 %). Crowley is returning with TV-series Life after Life and does not have an announced feature in the pipeline yet. Fegley returned in The War with Grandpa (2020); Elgort in Tokyo Vice (2021, TV-series) and theatrically in West Side Story (2021). The Goldfinch is rotten at 25 % with a 4.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Goldfinch?

Baby Driver (2017) - Wright's coky Elgort love letter is mostly for excited teens

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A stylized and cool-to-look-at poster for Edgar Wright's Baby Driver, - but don't the speed stripes in front of the red car indicate that it's speeding backwards, and soon right into at least two other cars? - What's going on?

Baby is a uniquely skilled driver, who is driving for a serious crime kingpin to work off his debt, as he falls for a young waitress and comes to realize that his chances of leaving the criminal path he is on might be very small.

Baby Driver is a hip and happening film this summer according to many critics and audiences, (though their number isn't up there with the tentpole monsters it competes against.) It is written and directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead (2004)). As a fan of good heist, car and action movies, I enjoyed some of the car chases in the film, especially one after a heist in which an incensed army veteran takes after the criminals and tries to stop them. The action and chases are well-done, though with no chance of going down in cinema history as something extraordinary.
Through the film, - which to me seems youth-eschewed to the point where I'd label it a youth movie (besides a romance, action, heist and car movie), - I felt strongly that Wright must have been on drugs while doing it, likely cocaine. The exhaustive pace, shallow playfulness and incredible love the film seems to have for itself throughout, coupled with its technical astuteness, were what made me jump to this personal conclusion, (I have no way of knowing if it's in any way true.)
The film revolves around Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars (2014)), whom Wright and his camera seems positively infatuated with. Elgort does fine, I think; I just felt too old to really get into this fantasy, where someone who mostly looks like an average teenager is a key player for a band of hardened criminals. I might have swallowed it whole, if I were one myself, but what exactly is supposed to be the attraction in this for adults? Perhaps Wright knows something I don't see; or perhaps he is just a teenager at heart still, and I am not. Elgort falls for Lily James (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)), who is pretty but fast forgotten here in a movie romance that recalls countless past movie romances in a pretty self-satisfied, referential style and is very neat and didn't succeed in raising my heartbeat for even a second.
Jon Hamm (Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016)), Jamie Foxx (Stealth (2005)) and Kevin Spacey (Shrink (2009)) are all excellently cast heavies here, but they function mostly as adult eye candy in a universe so stylized and far off that unless the very combination of them here in this dazzles you, or you're an enthusiastic younger movie lover (aged 12 - 19), it may feel like a distant revisitation of the Quentin Tarantino-ruled 1990s school of filmmaking.
The film is hailed for its artist-filled soundtrack, just as Tarantino's works often, and in some cases rightly, have been and are, but it isn't all that it's cranked up to be, and many of the songs are only dropped very briefly in the rushed narrative.
Baby Driver is a gimmicky ride from a talented filmmaker who seems intent on his own juvenile fixations (and might be doing tons of coke.) Maybe it will be more for you than it was for me.

Related posts:

Edgar Wright: Ant-Man (2015) - Reed and Rudd succeed with light, refreshing, FX-driven 3D spectacle (writer) 
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) - Wright's comic book nonsense is a terrible and costly studio misstep

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 34 mil. $
Box office: 70.8 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say
[Baby Driver premiered 11 March (SXSW Film Festival, Austin, Texas) and runs 113 minutes. Wright conceived the idea for the film in 1994, when he was 20 years old (!), and managed to get backing for this 20-year-old dream after leaving directing Ant-Man (2015), - which was then directed by Peyton Reed. Michael Douglas and Emma Stone were in talks for parts eventually filled by others. Filming took place in New Orleans, Louisiana and in Georgia, including in Atlanta from February - May 2016. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Despicable Me 3, to a 20.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it has now in its second week fallen to #3 and already grossed 56.8 mil. $. It will open in several large foreign markets from now until September and is likely to gross way past 100 mil. $, perhaps ending as high as 150. A sequel is already proposed. Baby Driver is certified fresh at 97 % with an 8.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Baby Driver?