The Goldfinch has finally made its long-awaited debut at the Toronto International Film Festival – but the critical reception has been overwhelmingly negative.
The film adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from 2013 premiered over the weekend, and critics have been quick to describe it as a “disaster”, “lifeless” and “unsatisfying”.
The Goldfinch follows the story of a 13-year-old boy who descends into a life of crime after surviving a terrorist attack at an art gallery which kills his mother.
Nicole Kidman, Ansel Elgort, Aneurin Barnard and Luke Wilson all star, and while their performances have been praised by some, the film as a whole has been roundly slammed in early reviews.
Collider awarded an “F” rating, calling it “vapid” and “grotesque”, adding that “it lacks the style or substance to be anything more than a gigantic waste of time.”
IndieWire labelled the Goldfinch “a gauzy, bloated slab of Oscar bait” and “a lifeless film”, while Variety took issue with the structure, calling it a “disjointed drama that sometimes feels like three separate movies jammed together”. The Times dismissed it as “unsatisfying”.
The Guardian were slightly more encouraging with their three-star review, though reviewer Benjamin Lee seemed somewhat indifferent, writing that it was “neither a rousing success nor an embarrassing failure, falling somewhere in between, closer to admirable attempt.”
The review also praised Kidman and Jeffrey Wright’s performances, along with director John Crowley, who has “progressed as a film-maker since [his 2014 drama] Brooklyn”.
The public will have to wait until later this month to reach their verdict, with The Goldfinch arriving in London cinemas on September 27.
