Taken from Donna Tartt’s hit 2013 novel, 2019’s The Goldfinch introduces us to 13-year-old Theo Decker (Oakes Fegley). When he and his mother Audrey (Hailey Wist) visit a New York art museum, a terrorist bomb explodes.

This attack kills Audrey and leaves Theo dazed and confused. As he wanders through the wreckage, Theo takes a piece of art called “The Goldfinch”.

Because Theo’s dad Larry (Luke Wilson) can’t be located, he moves in the wealthy Barbour family. As Theo becomes involved in this new life, his dad reappears and creates complications that persist into his adulthood (Ansel Elgort).

Because I never read the source novel, I can’t compare it to the cinematic version. Based on what I saw here, though, I have to assume it offers superior pleasures, as the film seems awfully limp.

At its core, Goldfinch wants to examine survivor’s guilt – I guess. The movie ambles around so much that it becomes difficult to pin down its real goals and purpose.

Most of the movie focuses on young Theo, which seems fine, though it means the adult Theo scenes feel superfluous. We just don’t get a strong enough sense of the older character for those moments to make much impact.

The two sides of the story fail to connect in a meaningful manner as well. Honestly, the child/adult aspects of the narrative seem largely unrelated, and it can feel like they come from entirely different worlds.

Of the two, childhood Theo becomes moderately more compelling, but that’s more because adult Theo offers such a dull presence. Those moments follow trite, tedious paths without anything to make them compelling.

Don’t expect much more material of interest during the young Theo segments, though, as they also tend to feel flat and bland. Both sides of the movie lack real narrative push or momentum.

If Goldfinch boasted some character depth, it’d compensate for its draggy story. However, we don’t get a strong impression of the roles and what makes them tick, so that aspect of the flick doesn’t ignite.

Really, there’s little to recommend here. Goldfinch comes with a strong cast but they can’t generate the drama needed from their underwritten parts, and they end up as cogs in a boring machine.

The Goldfinch appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a satisfactory presentation.

Overall sharpness seemed solid. A couple of wide shots looked a smidgen soft, but those were the exception to the rule, as the majority of the shows were accurate and detailed.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I noticed no edge haloes. Source flaws were absent, as the episodes looked consistently clean.

Like most dramas of this sort, Goldfinch gave us a palette that focused on orange/amber and teal. Within those parameters, the hues were positive.

Blacks seemed deep and dark, while shadows showed good smoothness and clarity. I felt happy with the image.

As for the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Goldfinch, it lacked a ton of ambition. The soundfield focused on music and ambience, though it opened up on occasion.

For instance, street scenes became a little more involving, as did some that involved weather and the aftermath of the terrorist event. Nothing especially memorable occurred, though.

Audio quality was fine. Speech seemed natural and concise, without edginess or other issues.

Music offered good clarity and range, and effects worked well enough. They didn’t have much to do, but they appeared reasonably accurate. All of this ended up as a perfectly satisfactory soundtrack for this sort of story.

We find two featurettes, and The Goldfinch Unbound fills 12 minutes, 54 seconds with comments from director John Crowley, producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson, production designer KK Barrett, and actors Sarah Paulson, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Wilson, Aneurin Barnard, Ansel Elgort, Finn Wolfhard, Oakes Fegley and Nicole Kidman.

“Unbound” examines the source novel and its adaptation, casting and performances, locations and photography. Despite some of the usual happy talk, “Unbound” offers a good array of insights.

With The Real Goldfinch, we locate an eight-minute, 38-second reel with info from Crowley, Elgort, Barnard, Fegley, Paulson, Barrett, Mauritshuis director Emilie Gordenker and Charge Scenic’s Alex Gorodetsky.

As expected, the program examines the original art, and we learn of its replication for the film. This becomes a pretty engaging discussion.

11 Deleted Scenes follow. Including intros from Crowley, these take up a total of 16 minutes, 59 seconds.

Given that most of the clips feature those intros, that means none of them run especially long. They lean toward character information, much of which feels fairly redundant.

Oh, a few potentially interesting threads evolve, such as young Theo’s visits to a therapist. I can’t claim any of them offer real substance, though, and given that the 149-minute movie already feels too long, their omission makes sense.

The disc opens with ads for The Good Liar and Motherless Brooklyn. No trailer for Goldfinch appears here.

Apparently the original novel of The Goldfinch offers a terrific piece of work. Little of that remains with the film version, as it becomes a sluggish, stuck-in-neutral character tale. The Blu-ray provides strong visuals along with adequate audio and a few bonus features. Goldfinch winds up as a forgettable drama.