The Goldfinch is a fine example of a kind of movie Hollywood (allegedly) doesn’t make anymore. Director John Crowley and screenwriter Peter Straughan's The Goldfinch, financed both by Warner Bros. and Amazon (in exchange for streaming rights), is as much of a "movie-movie" as you're likely to find in 2019.

Official studio synopsis: Theodore “Theo” Decker was 13 years old when his mother was killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The tragedy changes the course of his life, sending him on a stirring odyssey of grief and guilt, reinvention and redemption, and even love. Through it all, he holds on to one tangible piece of hope from that terrible day...a painting of a tiny bird chained to its perch; The Goldfinch.

The Goldfinch is a sprawling, decades-spanning epic rooted in character and visual beauty, based on Donna Tartt's best-selling novel and daring to exist in a time of event movies and franchise fare. Produced by Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, it wears its designation as a "drama" like a badge of honour. It is a character study, about a young man whose mother dies by sudden violence and how he copes with that loss as well as the other curves his life throws at him as he matures into a (still-tormented) young man. The film is stacked to the gills with fine actors, with Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Denis O'Hare (in a two-scene cameo seemingly cosplaying as Henry Czerny's Kittridge from the first Mission: Impossible) and Sarah Paulson offering sturdy support to the younger stars.

We can't speak to source fidelity or how well it captures whatever fans most appreciated about the 773-page novel. And nor will I argue that it's anywhere near as impressive as Crowley's previous period-piece literary adaptation, the modern classic Brooklyn. But this is a John Crowley movie featuring gorgeously intimate cinematography courtesy of Roger Deakins. If this all sounds like half-hearted praise, well, it is. The Goldfinch is no modern masterpiece, and it's probably not going to end up in the Oscar race. It has pacing issues and ends up saving most of its plot/incident for the third act. But it is the kind of thing we all claim we want, from a major studio no less, alongside the conventional would-be blockbusters. One may argue that it is a three-star movie that shouldn't be unduly penalised because it's not a four-star movie or because it prioritises character over onscreen incident. It's almost certainly doomed commercially, but unless we only want dramas when they come caked in clown make-up, The Goldfinch is worth your time and money.

– Compilation