In the trailer of the adaptation of Donna Tartt’s 2013 bestseller The Goldfinch, the love of art leads to death, crime, and wisdom. Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars, Baby Driver) plays Theo Decker, who loses his mother in a terrorist bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The two had come there to gaze upon the painting by the Dutch master Carel Fabritius called The Goldfinch. Fabritius too had died in a gunpowder explosion in Delft in 1654, and his surviving works are highly prized in the art world.
In the chaos following the terror attack, Theo steals the Fabritius painting as a way of holding on to his mother. “When I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier,” he says.
“The tragedy changes the course of his life, sending him on a stirring odyssey of grief and guilt, reinvention and redemption, and even love,” the synopsis declares. Theo is taken in by a New York socialite (Nicole Kidman), becomes an apprentice to antique dealer Hobie (Jeffrey Wright), befriends Ukrainian teenager Boris (Aneurin Barnard) and falls in love with Pippa (Ashleigh Cummings).
The movie has been directed by John Crowley (Brooklyn), written by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and shot by Roger Deakins. The Goldfinch will be released on September 13.
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