Everything is beautiful in John Crowley's adaptation of "The Goldfinch ," even the grilled cheese sandwich that a kind stranger makes for a boy who has just lost his mother. It's easy to get swept up by the refined stateliness surrounding this messy odyssey of grief and trauma. But like its well-pressed and repressed Anglo-Saxon protagonists, the film keeps the drama, the emotion and the catharsis at a tidy and safely compartmentalized distance, making the experience of sitting with this two and a half hour film a unique and perplexing one.
Adapted from Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Goldfinch" isn't a failure, but it's not a success either. It's an ambitious effort from a hoard of talented people, including Crowley, cinematographer Roger Deakins and actors like Nicole Kidman that gets a bit lost in its literary quirks while attempting to do everything and include everyone. It's the kind of dense, decade-spanning material that perhaps would have been better served by a miniseries like HBO has done with "My Brilliant Friend."
But they chose the middle ground: A very long movie that requires patience, at least a little knowledge of the book and some forgiveness for the things that just don't work at all (namely the romantic subplots). "The Goldfinch" is about a man, Theo Decker (played, at 13, by Oakes Fegley and as an adult by Ansel Elgort), who is bound by a childhood trauma that he's never been able to convince himself was not his fault. His mother died, along with many others, in a bombing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The only reason they were there was because he'd been accused of smoking in school and were killing time looking at her favorite paintings before a meeting with the principal.
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Jeffrey Wright, left, and Oakes Fegley in a scene from "The Goldfinch," in theaters on Sept. 13. (Macall PolayWarner Bros. Pictures via AP)
Two things that happen in the minutes after the devastating explosion that will come to define his life. First, a dying man asks Theo to take his ring back to his business partner Hobie (Jeffrey Wright). Then, Theo takes something else: Carel Fabritius' 1654 painting "The Goldfinch," which he smuggles out through the chaos and keeps as a kind of anchor of guilt and shame.
Flashing back between the aftermath of the tragedy and present day, in which Theo is a grief-wracked, drug-addled and bespoke suit wearing New York antique dealer who's about to get married and contemplating suicide, the film saves showing the explosion till the very end. It's an interesting storytelling choice, considering it is a prominent part of the trailer. But it may also be the thing that gets in the way of the audience connecting to Theo's journey from the beginning.
Fegley sells his part, however, and after a little adjustment to the rhythms of the film it's hard not to be drawn in by this young man who no one seems to want to help or counsel in any real way. Even the Barbours, the extremely wealthy and formal family who takes him into their uptown home, offer little actual comforting. Kidman plays the icily compassionate matriarch.
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Ansel Elgort in a scene from "The Goldfinch," in theaters on Sept. 13. (Macall PolayWarner Bros. Pictures via AP)
Theo's story gets more complicated when his deadbeat father (Luke Wilson) remerges and takes him take him away from all the culture and tweed and plops him down in a soulless, recession-stricken Las Vegas suburb. There his only friend is the vampiric Boris (Finn Wolfhard, with a vaguely Russian accent) who introduces him to vodka and pills. Naturally, the descent is set to Radiohead.
"The Goldfinch" is stoic and sad, occasionally brilliant and more often confusing. Adult Theo is far less engaging than his 13-year-old counterpart. Perhaps it's a casting problem or due to the plotlines getting too abundant and too absurd. People from his past re-enter his life and tragedy follows him everywhere. And then there is an unforgivably underdeveloped love story between Theo and a woman named Pippa, another bombing survivor, not to mention his fiancee.
His search for release, or redemption, is rushed and overly complicated. It may have worked for Tartt's novel, but as a film, the depths of this story are lost in translation — a flat reproduction that looks and sounds a lot like the masterpiece, but you know deep down that something is off.
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Nicole Kidman, left, and Ansel Elgort in a scene from "The Goldfinch," in theaters on Sept. 13. (Nicole RivelliWarner Bros. Pictures via AP)
"The Goldfinch," a Warner Bros. release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "drug use and language." Running time: 149 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
MPAA Definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr
JABO, Nigeria (AP) — Sanusi Madabo, a 40-year-old farmer in the Nigerian village of Jabo, was preparing for bed on Thursday night when he heard a loud noise that sounded like a plane crashing. He rushed outside his mud house with his wife to see the sky glowing a bright red.
The light burned bright for hours, Madabo said: “It was almost like daytime."
He did not learn until later that he had witnessed a U.S attack on an alleged camp of the militant Islamic State group.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced late Thursday that the United States had launched a “powerful and deadly strike” against IS militants in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has since confirmed that it cooperated with the U.S government in its strike.
Nigerian government spokesperson Mohammed Idris said Friday that the strikes were launched from the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after midnight and involved “16 GPS-guided precision" missiles and also MQ-9 Reaper drones.
Idris said the strikes targeted areas used as “staging grounds by foreign" IS fighters who had sneaked into Nigeria from the Sahel, the southern fringe of Africa's vast Sahara Desert. The government did not release any casualty figures among the militants.
Residents of Jabo, a village in the northwestern Nigerian state of Sokoto, spoke to The Associated Press on Friday about panic and confusion among the villagers following the strikes, which they said hit not far from Jabo's outskirts. There were no casualties among the villagers.
They said that Jabo has never been attacked as part of the violence the U.S. says is widespread — though such attacks regularly occur in neighboring villages.
Abubakar Sani, who lives on the edge of the village, recalled the “intense heat” as the strikes hit.
“Our rooms began to shake, and then fire broke out,” he told the AP.
“The Nigerian government should take appropriate measures to protect us as citizens," he added. "We have never experienced anything like this before.”
The strikes are the outcome of a monthslong tense diplomatic clash between the West African nation and the U.S.
The Trump administration has said Nigeria is experiencing a genocide of Christians, a claim the Nigerian government has rejected.
However, Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs now said the strikes resulted from intelligence sharing and strategic coordination between the two governments.
Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria's foreign minister, called the airstrikes a “new phase of an old conflict" and said he expected more strikes to follow.
“For us, it is something that has been ongoing," Tuggar added, referring to attacks that have targeted Christians and Muslims in Nigeria for years.
Bulama Bukarti, a security analyst on sub-Saharan Africa, said the residents' fear is compounded by a lack of information.
Nigerian security forces have since cordoned off the area of the strikes and access was not allowed.
Bukarti said transparency would go a long way to calm the local residents. "The more opaque the governments are, the more panic there will be on the ground, and that is what will escalate tensions.”
Analysts say the strikes might have been intended for the Lakurawa group, a relatively new entrant to Nigeria's complex security crisis.
The group's first attack was recorded around 2018 in the northwestern region before the Nigerian government officially announced its presence last year. The composition of the group has been documented by security researchers as primarily consisting of foreigners from the Sahel.
However, experts say ties between the Lakurawa group and the IS are unproven. The Islamic State West African Province — an IS affiliate in Nigeria — has its strongholds in the northeastern part of the country, where it is currently involved in a power struggle with its parent organization, Boko Haram.
“What might have happened is that, working with the American government, Nigeria identified Lakurawa as a threat and identified camps that belong to the group,” Bukarti said.
Still, some local people feel vulnerable.
Aliyu Garba, a Jabo village leader, told the AP that debris left after the strikes was scattered, and that residents had rushed to the scene. Some picked up pieces of the debris, hoping for valuable metal to trade, and Garba said he fears they could get hurt.
The strikes rattled 17-year-old Balira Sa’idu, who has been preparing for her upcoming marriage.
"I am supposed to be thinking about my wedding, but right now I am panicking," she said. “The strike has changed everything. My family is afraid, and I don’t even know if it is safe to continue with the wedding plan in Jabo.”
Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria.
A previous version of this story was corrected to note that analyst Bulama Bukarti is no longer with the Tony Blair Institute.
People visit the site of a U.S. airstrike in Northwest, Jabo, Nigeria, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/ Tunde Omolehin)
A boy picks debris at the site of a U.S. airstrike in Northwest, Jabo, Nigeria, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/ Tunde Omolehin)
Police Anti-Bomb squad inspect the site of a U.S. airstrike in Northwest, Jabo, Nigeria, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/ Tunde Omolehin)
Nigeria police, Anti-Bomb squad, secure the scene of a U.S. airstrike in Northwest, Jabo, Nigeria, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/ Tunde Omolehin)
People visit the site of a U.S. airstrike in Northwest, Jabo, Nigeria, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/ Tunde Omolehin)
