The Goldfinch ’s adaptation loses the charm of the novel, going from Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to film festival flop.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 24, 2025

The Goldfinch is dripping with sentimentality, twee visuals and ponderous emotive pull, but is short on logic, a strong narrative and believability.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 9, 2023

...quite faithful to the original’s challenging plot...

| Oct 3, 2022

Even at two and a half hours, John Crowley’s film version of The Goldfinch feels compressed, sacrificing plot development for the sake of character development to the point where it becomes completely unbelievable.

| Original Score: 5/10 | May 13, 2022

It's well-crafted, but there's absolutely no emotional connection.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 15, 2021

Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel touched millions. Now, in Hollywood's hands, the story of a broken young boy coming to terms with the death of his mother is painfully one note, and sort of pointless.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2021

...a deliberate and somewhat erratic drama that ultimately fares better than one might've anticipated...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 13, 2021

...a meticulous, beautifully mounted adaptation that deserves an audience

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2021

While perhaps not the surefire Oscar bet that might be expected of an adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize winner, The Goldfinch is nevertheless an enthralling story filled with fascinating characters and great performances.

| Feb 18, 2021

This is one of the many muddy and unhelpful responses to the events of 9/11 and what has come after them, along with other events in the new century.

| Feb 10, 2021

The rough-edged-yet-tender friendship between Theo and Boris feels lived-in, yet somehow, when it resurfaces in adult form, it feels as phony and superficial as if the characters were being introduced for the first time.

| Original Score: C | Feb 5, 2021

The expansive story takes one or two strange turns too many and feels stretched in its final half-hour but is bolstered by tremendous performances courtesy of the ensemble, with Fegley, Kidman, Jeffrey Wright and Luke Wilson leading the pack.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 31, 2021

In what could possibly be the most ambitious adaptation of the year - if not of the century - The Goldfinch swings for the stars and lands with the birds in a supremely sentimental, highly cinematic and oftentimes unbearably manicured film.

| Jan 28, 2021

Crowley's film isn't awful, necessarily, but there's a narrative anaemia that leaves the whole thing feeling flat.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 16, 2020

The approach is so lackluster, with such little energy within the scenes, that it was a struggle to keep engaged with what was happening.

| Original Score: C- | Jul 8, 2020

Thank the casting gods for seeing that this overlong and confusingly plotted film has at its core a heartbreaking performance from an imp slightly under five-foot-tall, Oakes Fegley.

| May 27, 2020

The Goldfinch felt messy, poorly paced, and indicative of having been based on a book that I fear may also bore me now that the film has spoiled the bulk of its plot developments.

| Mar 17, 2020

A cinematic jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces missing. Easy on the eyes, hard on the brain.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 17, 2020

The Goldfinch feels rushed yet lacking in energy, more a transplantation of the book's plot than an invested adaptation.

| Feb 27, 2020

The thrilling crime drama that grips the book's final third flits by in about five minutes, as the director perhaps realized that we were already at the two-and-half hour mark.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 29, 2020