LATE NIGHT (15)

BUT UNLIKE OTHER ADAPTATIONS OF AWARD-WINNING NOVELS, THE GOLDFINCH IS A FRUSTRATING WATCH

LEAFING through the pages of cinema’s chequered history, it’s clear that Academy Award voters nurture an affection for films adapted from Pulitzer Prize-winning novels.

All The King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren claimed three golden statuettes in 1950 including Best Picture, The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk snagged seven nominations in 1955 and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee translated eight nods into three wins, including Best Actor for Gregory Peck, in 1963.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker garnered an impressive 11 nominations in 1985 (but famously won nothing on the night) while The Hours by Michael Cunningham competed in nine categories in 2003, securing Nicole Kidman the Best Actress prize for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf – complete with prosthetic nose.

The Goldfinch, adapted from Donna Tartt’s 2013 bestseller, bears the hallmarks of another serious awards contender.

Director John Crowley’s previous film was the heartrending rites-of-passage drama Brooklyn; screenwriter Peter Straughan was Oscar-nominated for his elegant distillation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Devonborn cinematographer Roger Deakins won last year for Blade Runner 2049; the cast includes Kidman – concealed beneath ageing make-up and prosthetics – and the running time clocks in at almost two and a half hours.

Alas, appearances are deceiving because Tartt’s ★★★★★

FOR almost 30 years, Katherine Newbury (Dame Emma Thompson) has presided over an awardwinning talk show. Unfortunately, ratings have plummeted and the network president (Amy Ryan) decides to terminate Katherine’s contract. Faced with the reality of relinquishing her crown to edgy stand-up comedian Daniel Tennant (Ike Barinholtz), Katherine orders producer Brad (Denis O’Hare) to hire a female writer to reverse the show’s fortunes. Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), joins an all-white male writers’ room). There’s much to love about this sparky comedy but it fails to deliver a killer punchline.

Download/stream from September 30 and available on DVD from October 14. compelling prose and artful storytelling have been hopelessly lost in a translation that marries a disjointed, chronologically fractured narrative with unsympathetic characters, who fail to make a palpable emotional impact on each other, let alone touch us.

It’s a beautifully crafted mess and we are increasingly bamboozled and frustrated observers.

Thirteen-year-old Theodore Decker (Oakes Fegley) visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with his mother Audrey (Hailey Wist) when a bomb shatters the hushed calm.

Audrey is killed, but the boy survives.

In the dust-filled aftermath, Theo accepts a ring from a fatally injured old man (Robert Joy), who instructs the lad to take a painting called The Goldfinch by

Theo is infatuated with Pippa (played by Ashleigh Cummings)