The Goldfinch

Theo loses his mother in a museum bombing and, on the word of a dying man at the scene, walks out with a famous painting. It stays at the centre of his life for years. It comes from Donna Tartt's Pulitzer-winning novel. Roger Deakins shot it, and that is usually named as the one defensible thing about it. The reviews were crushing. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 24 percent, with a consensus that it mishandles its source and flattens a complex narrative. A. O. Scott in the New York Times said it looked like a Pinterest page or a piece of fan art, and Peter Travers called it a botch job for the ages that adapts the Cliff's Notes version of the book. The commercial failure matched. Against a budget between 44 and 49 million dollars it took 10 million worldwide. Its 2.6 million dollar opening was the sixth worst wide opening of all time for a film on more than 2,500 screens. Tartt did not stand behind it. She was paid 3 million dollars for the rights and had no input on the screenplay or the production, and reportedly fired the agent she had worked with for over thirty years afterwards. Who it is for: viewers who want to see Deakins work, and readers of the novel who are curious. Who it is not for: almost everyone. It runs 149 minutes and arrives nowhere emotionally.