Cert 15 149mins Stars 2

There’s a downward change of gear for Baby Driver star, Ansel Elgort, in this lethargic and melancholy mystery drama which begins to peter out as soon as it starts.

He plays a smart young art dealer involved in forgery, for whom a famous painting called The Goldfinch, is of special significance to him as a result of his mother dying during a terrorist bomb attack when he was a child.

Weighed down by it’s desire to impress, the dialogue often resembles a deathless list of composers, artists and authors, and is full of trite observations about art, memory and identity.

Adapted from a novel by Donna Tartt, it uses the always impressive cinematography of Brit Roger Deakins as a fig leaf to hide the soap opera plotting full of coincidence, betrayal and abandonment.

It’s all the more disappointing as it’s directed by John Crowley, who made Brooklyn, one of my favourite films of 2015. I suggest you give this one the bird.