The Goldfinch: Well Done Pultizer Prize Winning Fiction of Depth

Movie Review: The Goldfinch (2019)

Version: Amazon Prime

Based on the 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name, The Goldfinch is the spellbinding tale of a boy haunted by the death of his mother in a terrorist bombing of a New York City art museum and the painting that connects him to it.

The film features a delicate weave of layers between today and yesterday, of young, innocent Theo Decker (Oakes Fegley) and today's scheming Theo (Ansel Elgort), mastering a deeply held secret that he is somehow at fault for his mother's death. He takes that feeling of guilt with him into adulthood and his friendships, ever afraid to fail others and to lose the painting he secretly rescues from the bombed museum but ultimately fails to return to its rightful owners, even as it imperils him later. The name of the painting, which has survived centuries of devastation of its own, is "The Goldfinch"

Theo Decker is an amazing character, but he plays against an interesting array of side characters, too, to make The Goldfinch a compelling watch. There is the family that brings him into its fold when he is first orphaned, shepherded by his school friend's mother Mrs. Barbour (Nicole Kidman). At first he's a nuisance, but they come to like and then accept him as one of their own. Nicole Kidman somehow seems kind of creepy in the role. Then there's Theo's deadbeat dad Larry (Luke Wilson), who just as the Barbours are about to adopt Theo shows up to take him to Las Vegas to chew him up and spit him out over his own failings. The most endearing characters are Hobie (Jeffrey Wright), the antique store owner who finds a place in his heart and a room in his home for a lost Theo, not to mention a place for the future, and Boris (Finn Wolfhard in youth, Aneurin Barnard as adult), who is Theo's best friend. They make the story come to life and ultimately help Theo free "The Goldfinch" and Theo.

There are many surprises in this film, not the least comes at the end. Tying all the pieces together is done masterfully, but you have to be patient watching the timelines shift back and forth, although The Goldfinch does a better job at this than most films featuring flashbacks and flash forwards. Be patient -- it is worth it. I promise, it will be worth it.

I can see why the book won a Pulitzer for fiction. I'll be reading the book as soon as I can get my hands on it. This is a great story and the movie is worth viewing. Well done!

Boy Erased: Sometimes Brutally Honest Film on an Important Topic

Movie Review: Boy Erased (2018)
Version: Library Blu-Ray borrow

Boy Erased features a fine cast (Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton) in a sometimes brutally honest memoir of a late-teen's experience with gay conversion therapy imposed by his willful dogmatic preacher-father. Includes a particularly savage rape scene, so this may not be a film for young viewers.

One of the positives about this film is that it doesn't resort to the typical gay stereotypes to portray the main character Jared's fellow therapy subjects. They come off as teens who happen to be gay and we can focus on their struggles instead of the often groan-able stereotypes. One of the negatives is that in not employing at least a couple of stereotypes is that the characters are one dimensional and in some ways seem unrealistic. Where the film may overplay its hand in use of stereotypes is in portraying the southern Baptist fundamentalists who run the therapy camp. In doing so, they risk making the characters look too dark, too evil, and too fit-to-form to be believable.

This is a memoir, so these characters may very well be as written, but all too often we get the feeling artist's license gives free rein to embellishment and the viewer's willful suspension of disbelief takes a hit. I got the feeling that was true here. Another nit was that most of the gay characters were male. There was one lesbian in the therapy class of a dozen or so boys. That seemed strange. Later, the lesbian was seen with a study group of other girls, presumably other lesbians at the center. None of this was addressed in the story. She seemed out place, didn't seem to have a real role.

It was a great story, well written and nicely paced. Definitely a social consciousness story that examined a lot of important sexual-orientation, parental-awareness, and religious-tolerance issues that didn't get bogged down in trying to play nice but focused on telling an important story.

Lion: There Aren't Enough Adjectives to Describe This Remarkable Film

Movie Review: Lion (2016)
Version: Library borrow

Lion is a beautiful film, short changed during this year's Oscars. Sunny Pawar and Dev Patel were Oscar worthy in leading roles and the film was well worthy of Best Picture.

This is the true story about a young boy in India leaving home with his slightly older brother to find night work to support the family. He falls asleep on a train platform bench, so his brother leaves him there, promising to return. When the brother doesn't come back, young Saroo wanders around looking for older Guddu, and not finding him settles for another nap on an uninhabited train car. He wakes up in the morning in the car in motion, traveling for two days, his trip ending thousands of miles away from where his journey started. Lost and not speaking the language of his new surroundings, Saroo seeks help but can't get it. He faces multiple dangers from kidnappers and insincere strangers before ending up in a police-run orphanage, where he is finally given help, adopted by a couple in Australia, where he grows into adulthood. As an adult, Saroo finds it difficult to think of his brother and mother wondering what ever happened to him and struggles to discover his roots and the location of his original home, in the process alienating all the people in Australia who have become his friends and family.

There is much to love about this film adaptation of the book Little Boy Lost by Saroo Brierley. The story is heart wrenching, although the outcome is heart warming. The imagery of India and Australia is breathtaking, while the editing and pacing are measured. The acting performances by Sunny Pawar as the young Saroo and Dev Patel as the adult Saroo are wonderful, and Nicole Kidman as Saroo's Austrilian mother Sue Brierley is exceptional. Everything comes together perfectly in this film to tell this amazing story.

I have requested the book because I want to read the original story now, too. Saroo participated in the writing of the script, but I want to know this remarkable story in his own words. It's that good!

Every once in a while, there appears a movie spellbinding in its telling, in its showing, in its visual arts. And Lion is that film. Honestly, there aren't enough adjectives to describe this remarkable film. You should see it!

Genius: A Deeply Emotional Film Well Worth Viewing

Movie Review: Genius (2016)
Version: Library Borrow

Good books are usually a collaboration between the author and the editor. A relationship develops between the writer and the wordsmith, in which the one creates and the other molds. Based on the book, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Max Berg, Genius sensitively taps the deep well that is this subject, which in this case is the all too-short time author Thomas Wolfe and editor Max Perkins worked together.

This is a good film that didn't gross much at the box office,yet deserves an audience for its superb acting, it's great writing, and its well paced plot.

The story unfolds in depression-era 1929 as Max Perkins is sitting in his office editing a book by Steinbeck. A colleague walks in with a heavy sheath of typed pages and hands them to Perkins. "Is it any good?" he says. "No, but he's a genius." Perkins takes the tome home and on the way reads in on the train, and on the walk to the house, and in through the door, up the stairs, past the wife rehearsing for a play, daughters playing in the living room, office, bedrooms, and every other quiet room of the house. He finally settles in a closet. He is enraptured by the book. The next day, Wolfe walks flamboyantly into his office, sure that, like every other publisher in New York City, Scbriner & Sons won't think the book is any good. Perkins surprises him with a $500 advance and wants to get to work on it right away.

From there, Perkins guides Wolfe on decisions into making Look Homeward, Angel from 1100 pages into a more compact book. Elated at publishing his first work, Wolfe is eager and compliant at the hands of an experienced editor. Once the book is published and becomes a bestseller, Wolfe writes his second novel, some 5,000 pages long, delivered in handwritten pages. Wolfe is less pliant with what he sees as his masterpiece of visualizations, but Perkins helps him focus less on vibrant descriptions and more on impactful language that brings the story into focus. They work on the book for two years, wrestling back and forth over excessive language to publish Of Time and the River.

Subplots in the story include Wolfe's complex relationship with his patron and lover, Aline Bernstein, a theater set decorator with a waning marriage and a jealous attachment to Wolfe. Also Perkin's family, who can't get enough time with husband and father Perkins because of the time he spends on Wolfe's books. Intertwined are interactions with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

The characters are rich and earthy, played to great depth by Colin Firth as Perkins, Jude Law as Wolfe, Nicole Kidman as Bernstein, Laura Linney as Perkin's wife Louise, Guy Pearce as Fitzgerald, and Dominic West as Hemingway. If anything is out of the ordinary, it is the excess with which Law plays Wolfe's eccentricity. Perkin's hat may well have gotten a credit -- he wears it in every scene, till near the end. Was it a metaphor for the man who wore but one hat in life, that of extraordinary editor to great writers?

You don't have to be an author or editor to appreciate this film. It offers fine acting, great writing, elegant cinematography, and beautiful set decoration. You feel for the characters as they work through the plots and subplots. It is a deeply emotional film. Genius is well worth your viewing.