Boxoffice - August 2019

LITTLE ORPHAN THEO
Mrs. Barbour (Nicole
Kidman) does her best
to comfort the bereaved
Theo (Oakes Fegley)
in John Crowley’s The
Goldfinch
Cinema Gold
JOHN CROWLEY TAKES ON A LITERARY
BEHEMOTH WITH THE GOLDFINCH
BY REBECCA PAHLE
>> There’s always an element of risk in adapting
a beloved book. For every film that manages
to please its preexisting fan base (the Lord of the
Rings trilogy), there’s one that doesn’t (The Golden
Compass). There are no elves or talking polar bears
in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch—far from it—but
what it does have is a Pulitzer Prize, months on The
New York Times best seller list, and legions of avid
readers waiting to see whether Warner Bros.’ film
adaptation, out in North America on September
13, does its source material justice.
One of those avid readers is John Crowley, who
in 2016 was coming off quite the good year. His
fifth feature, Brooklyn, had been nominated for
three Oscars—including Best Picture—and was
named Best British Film at the BAFTAs. It was a
solid indie hit for Fox Searchlight, earning $38.3
million despite never cracking the 1,000-screen
barrier. “After I made Brooklyn, I had a meeting
at Warners, and they were asking me if there was
anything that they were developing that might
be of interest to me. And the only thing was The
Goldfinch,” he says. “I auditioned like hell for it.
Banging on the doors saying, ‘You have to let me
have a shot at convincing you why I am the best
person to direct it!’
“I had a very strong emotional reaction to the
core of the story and a very clear sense of what the
film should feel like,” the director continues. “It
was very clear what was original about Donna’s
message about culture and about story and her very
original way of examining grief and love and loss
and redemption.” By mid-2016, Warner Bros. was
sold on Crowley’s vision, and the word was out—
76 AUGUST 2019