Ansel Elgort, Oakes Fegley, Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Wilson, Sarah Paulson

I found this true gem while looking for a good movie with A.Elgort. 2h 20min – it is noticeable that it lasts a little longer than average film, but I was not bored for a single moment. Almost half of the film was ‘stolen’ from Elgort by young O.Fegley, who was simply a pleasure to watch.

When movie was relesed Fegley was still underaged (16 years old in that time), and already had several successful titles. He had his debut appearance in ‘Fort Bliss‘ alongside M.Monaghan, followed by Disney’s ‘Pete’s Dragon‘ with B.D.Howard and R.Redford, as well as ‘Wonderstruck‘ with J.Moore and M.Williams.

Because of that, I would praise the director primarily, considering that a different (wrong) choice of main role would have changed the entire course of this adaptation.

The film is a ‘shortened’ version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. I said ‘shortened’ because the book has almost 800 pages, on the topic of which I encountered numerous negative comments, mostly due to insufficiently developed characters.

On the contrary, I will give another compliment to the direction, due to the carefully executed flashbacks (between the period of childhood and the time when the protagonist has already grown up), as well as excellently chosen moments for them.

The plot takes us back in time when our protagonist was a boy, revealing step by step what actually happened that day when bomb exploded in the museum, and killed his mother.

The circumstances following her death will become more and more interesting, and will ‘stuck us’ in front of the screen waiting for answers to many questions.

Where did the picture of the Goldfinch in his possession came from? Why has he kept it hidden for so many years? How did he grow from an orphan to a young businessman?

Several well-known faces will appear in supporting (but still an important) roles… Here I will give another compliment to the director, who (I would say) managed to achieve that we don’t actually have a ‘main’ role to stick with.

We will see L.Wilson as a negligent alcoholic father, with S.Paulson as his girlfriend. Then N.Kidman, whose wealthy family was the first to accept him after the accident. J.Wright was his next benefactor…

All the actors contributed exactly as they should, and rounded out this story of life, friendship, compassion, and the underlying message that there’s always a chance (and hope) to turn the bad things and life situations into something positive.