The Goldfinch: reviews

What the critics say average 4.3 from 8 outlets

• 6.0 The GuardianBenjamin Lee It?s neither a rousing success nor an embarrassing failure, falling somewhere in between, closer to admirable attempt. Read
• 5.8 Vanity FairRichard Lawson I wish all of Tartt?s tender and moving allegory?the way she pours the density of growth and regret into a solid thing that can pass hands?had space to bloom in the film. It doesn?t, and I left the film appreciative of its style and strong performances, but not emotionally altered in any lingering way. Read
• 5.0 USA TodayBrian Truitt It?s a lot of soapy melodrama and underdeveloped characters that never really go anywhere. Read
• 5.0 The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthy In the end, there?s too much good stuff missing and yet not enough to serve as a satisfying meal. Read
• 5.0 VarietyOwen Gleiberman What you experience isn?t the book, exactly; it?s the strenuous creative labor that went into adapting it. What cast a winding spell on the page has become an occasionally compelling but mostly labored live-action illustration. Read
• 3.3 IndiewireDavid Ehrlich The big problem with The Goldfinch ? a lifeless film that doesn?t consist of scenes so much as it does an awkward jumble of other, smaller problems stacked on top of each other like kids inside a trench coat ? is that it mistakes its source material for a great work of art. Read
• 2.5 The Washington PostAnn Hornaday Overstuffed, overlong and utterly uninvolving, this is a movie that feels as morbidly trapped as the poor little bird of its title. Rather than spread its wings and fly free, it stays frustratingly, eternally inert. Read
• 2.0 Rolling StonePeter Travers The beauty of the costumes and production design merely create a gilded cage for gifted actors who appear and disappear at the director?s will, while given scant opportunity to develop characters. Read