Adapting an almost 800-page, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel for the screen would be difficult for any filmmaker, so kudos to director John Crowley for trying. The 2013 bildungsroman by Donna Tartt, which follows a boy in the aftermath of his mother’s death in a terrorist bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is elegiac and self-important: perfect for Oscar bait. The film adaptation contains breathtaking imagery from master cinematographer Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men, Sicario), sumptuous set dressings from production designer K.K. Barratt, and grounded performances from Oakes Fegley and Angel Ensort, who play the boy when he’s a teen and a young adult, respectively. Other fine actors (including Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, and Sarah Paulson) fill supporting roles of the boy’s various caretakers, but their performances are hobbled by a script that flattens their characters into archetypes and by an excess of stylistic time jumps in which the editing calls attention to itself. A cool sterility lingers beneath every cue meant to tug at our insides: a dreamy red-haired girl from our hero’s past, or the titular painting that he takes from the ashes of the Met as a way to hold on to what he’s lost. The symbols are obvious, and each is featherlight.
By Leah Pickett
