Ansel Elgort

Review of “The Goldfinch”

Theodore Decker (Oakes Fegley as a 13-year-old, Ansel Elgort as an adult) has suffered numerous tragedies in his life. His father, Larry (Luke Wilson), was a drunk with dreams of being an actor and abandoned his family. His mother was killed in a terrorist bombing at a New York City museum. For a time, Theo lives with the Barbour family. Mrs. Barbour (Nicole Kidman) is a bit cold and distant at first but warms to having Theo around. The Barbour’s are considering adopting Theo when Larry shows up with his new wife Xandra (Sarah Paulson) and moves his son out to Las Vegas. There, Theo meets Boris (Finn Wolfhard), a wild young man from Ukraine that lives with his abusive father. When another tragedy befalls him, Theo runs away, returning to New York City to live with Hobie (Jeffrey Wright), a restorer of antique furniture he met after his mother’s death. Theo grows into an intelligent and charming young man, but he always has a cloud hanging over him from the chaos in the museum that isn’t just the loss of his mother.

Based on a novel of the same name, “The Goldfinch” is a sumptuous and beautifully shot film. It is filled with loving looks at classic paintings, antique furniture, lavish New York apartments, the desolate wasteland outside Las Vegas, the aftermath of a bombing and the near-perfect structure of Ansel Elgort’s face. For all its beauty and technical mastery, “The Goldfinch” lacks any guts. It provides all the makings for both a fascinating mystery and searing character drama yet ignores all its gifts in exchange for atmosphere and style. The movie wants you to be so dazzled by the visuals, you’ll ignore its fatal flaw: There is no “there” there.

That isn’t to say the film has nothing entertaining about it. Ansel Elgort puts on a master class in creating a character that has numerous layers implied in his performance. There’s a sense of danger in the adult Theo. He is broken by the loss of his mother, his feeling of guilt, the betrayal by his father and the choice he made in the museum. Elgort’s performance is nuanced and subtle, while also being complicated. I was never sure if Theo was ever telling the truth at any time. Usually he was, however, he is shown being capable of defrauding people. Does he treat everyone this way? I was never sure.

Elgort is turning very little story into a wonderful performance. The script from Peter Straughan is long on reaction shots and short on meaningful interactions. There are numerous thoughtful stares and quiet, emotional closeups as Elgort and others in the cast are getting their hearts broken or wearing them on their sleeves. Some of these scenes are affecting, but they lack any real punch since the movie spreads all the meaningful events so thin. It drops a few tidbits here and there to suggest something interesting is around the corner. Finn Wolfhard’s Boris (played as an adult by Aneurin Barnard) coming on to the scene introduces Theo’s dangerous side with his use of drugs and alcohol at odds with his cultured and conservative demeanor. These vices increase into adulthood with Theo crushing up pills and snorting them to dull the pain of his past. All of this implies a person on the edge of self-destruction, yet we don’t feel the danger of Theo’s lifestyle as it is always shown with a veneer of perfection. The filmmakers want the beautiful people to stay beautiful at all costs.

The movie has a listed running time of two hours and 29 minutes. There is probably a very good movie buried under the mountain of long, silent stretches. It feels like at least 30 minutes could be trimmed, if not more. While the film held my interest and I wondered what would happen next, I ultimately found the ending of the movie to have been a long, beautiful and boring ride. I didn’t know what to expect, but I expected more than I got.

“The Goldfinch” is rated R for drug use and language. Theo and Boris still some pills, crush and snort them. They also trip on LSD. They are shown drinking beer and smoking when both are underage. The pill snorting continues as Theo is an adult. Foul language is scattered.

Ansel Elgort, Oakes Fegley, Finn Wolfhard and Nicole Kidman are standouts in a cast that is filled with very good actors and performances. It is a shame all their efforts are wasted on a film that takes two and a half hours to go almost nowhere. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the novel the film is based on or the interpretation of that novel to a movie script. Wherever the fault lies, “The Goldfinch” is a lost opportunity to create both a compelling mystery and a deep psychological drama. I wanted so much more as the minutes ticked by, but all I got was a very slow train passing by with the occasional boxcar having mildly interesting graffiti.

“The Goldfinch” gets two stars out of five.

My wife and I do a podcast called “Comedy Tragedy Marriage.” Each episode, one of us picks a movie, we watch it together then talk about it. It’s available on all the major podcasting platforms. Please give it a listen.

This week, I’ll be reviewing “Rambo: Last Blood” for WIMZ.com.

Also opening this week:

Ad Astra—

Downton Abbey—

Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman123@gmail.com.

Review of “Baby Driver”

Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a quiet young man who listens to music constantly through his iPod to drown out the tinnitus that has plagued him since he was in a car accident as a child. That accident also left him an orphan as both is parents died in the crash. Baby has been the foster son of Joseph (CJ Jones) for many years but Joseph, who is deaf, is confined to a wheelchair and now Baby takes care of him. Baby has a job as a driver but it’s not like being a chauffeur: Baby is the wheel man for a rotating group of bank robbers led by Doc (Kevin Spacey). Baby stole a car of Doc’s several years prior that was filled with expensive “merchandise.” Baby dumped the car after his joy ride but Doc, who had watched the whole thing, held him responsible for the value of the merchandise lost in the theft. Baby has been the getaway driver for all the jobs Doc has masterminded since they met. Baby gets an equal share of the take but Doc keeps most of it giving Baby a tiny fraction to live on. Doc never uses the same crew twice on a job and has recently brought in Bats (Jamie Foxx) for what may be their biggest job yet. Bats is unstable and violent, willing to kill at the drop of a hat, and he rubs the rest of the crews the wrong way. Baby has recently met Deborah (Lily James), a waitress at the diner he frequents and he is falling in love. They share a love of music and a desire to leave their lives behind for the open road. Baby thought his days of driving for Doc were over but he gets pulled back in (thanks to threats on the lives of everyone he loves) for one more job. Now Baby is having more and more trouble keeping his professional life from jeopardizing the lives of those he loves.

“Baby Driver” is a rare original idea in a summer of reboots, sequels and massive franchise films and it’s from a director that nearly helmed “Ant-Man.” Edgar Wright, the creative mind behind the “Cornetto Trilogy” of “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz” and “The World’s End” along with the underappreciated “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” has given audiences a refreshing treat in a summer of warmed-over ideas and CGI-heavy extravaganzas. If only more studios and filmmakers would be willing to take a chance on small stories of fairly regular people trapped in extraordinary circumstances there might be more tickets sold and more money in their pockets. Of course, not all filmmakers have a mind as creative at Edgar Wright but we are lucky he found a studio willing to take a chance on his vision.

Ansel Elgort is a vision to behold playing Baby. The character is so laid back he’s practically lying down: but Baby is far more in tune with what’s going on around him than many believe and he truly comes alive behind the wheel. Elgort finds the perfect balance of calm and energy for Baby. He never raises much above a low boil even when he has a gun shoved in his face. Baby can calculate what needs to be done to avoid a police roadblock and an oncoming car without breaking a sweat or losing an earbud. It’s a performance many actors could not have believably pulled off but Elgort does it with ease. He’s brilliant in the role.

While also brilliant, Jamie Foxx is scary as the unstable Bats. His intense stare and hair-trigger temper make Bats a dangerous man to be around and Foxx is able to bring a level of menace and unpredictability to the role that few could. Watching the film I was never quite sure which way Bats would go in any situation and that made the scenes he’s in incredibly powerful to watch. It would not surprise me to see Foxx nominated for a supporting actor award next year.

While the trailers have emphasized the car stunts in the movie, aside from the opening chase there aren’t really that many in the film; but that chase has a level of beauty and precision other films will feel the need to match. It has the kind of stunts that the “Fast and the Furious” films wish they could do but now must have cars flying over mountains and blasting through buildings. There are a couple more car chases in “Baby Driver” but they are more of the ram and slam variety where the opening stunt series is like watching a surgeon remove a tumor from a very delicate part of the brain. It is an amazing opening sequence.

“Baby Driver” is a movie where the soundtrack is a character unto itself. Comprised of 30 songs ranging in style from jazz to hip-hop, the music is what Baby is listening to as he drives. It is a window into his mind and personality. It conveys the emotion of the scene and the people in it. It takes over for exposition where none is needed. The movie is edited to, and the characters move in time with, the music that is constantly playing through Baby’s earbuds or the speakers in his car. I’m not sure they give awards for that kind of thing but if they do, “Baby Driver” is a shoe-in to take home the trophy.

“Baby Driver” is rated R for violence and language throughout. There are numerous shootings, some bloodier than others. We see a character hit by a car and thrown into the air then run over again. A character is shown impaled on metal rods after a car crash. There are other acts of violence in the film as well. Foul language is common but not overwhelming.

Edgar Wright has been working to get “Baby Driver” made for over 20 years. His dismissal from the director’s chair for Marvel’s “Ant-Man” may have been a blessing in disguise as it gave Wright the incentive to make a movie the way he wanted to make it and the result is a music and thrill-filled film that should be viewed twice just to catch all the little touches the director has thrown in to add an extra dash of flavor to an already tasty bit of filmmaking.

“Baby Driver” gets five stars.

This week the much anticipated “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is the only film in wide release and that’s what I’ll see and review:

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