The Goldfinch: Soars on screen

Ansel Elgort as grown up Theo

Last night, the Movie Slut finally reached page 771 of The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Today, she saw the movie based on the book. It's only the second time in her movie-obsessed life that MS has liked a movie more than a book.

Clearly she was not on the Pulitzer committee.

It is almost a surprise that a neat plot and salient messages were buried under page after page of boozing and drugging, needless repetitions, and a throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach. The movie seemed to peel away layers of cold-weather padding to reveal a chic little dress.

For those who refused to invest days of their lives to reading the tome, it tells the story of  13-year-old Theo Decker, who loses his mother in a terrorist bombing and how the tragedy informs the rest of his life. It's also the story of a 17th-century work of art that survived a fire that took the life of the painter and is now saved from another disaster four centuries later.

BTW, the other movie the MS liked more than the book is the 2009 film Up In The Air .