Theo is an engaging character – for the most part well played – and his journey is both entertaining and heartbreaking. Meaning much like the painting at the centre of this tale, Theo’s story both survives, and endures. despite the fragmented film’s shortcomings.

Enough of the individual moments pulled from the rag-and-bone shop of Donna Tartt’s sprawling mystery narrative make an emotional impact that the story’s structural issues fail to register as much at first.

It’s neither a rousing success nor an embarrassing failure, falling somewhere in between, closer to admirable attempt.

I wish all of Tartt’s tender and moving allegory—the way she pours the density of growth and regret into a solid thing that can pass hands—had space to bloom in the film. It doesn’t, and I left the film appreciative of its style and strong performances, but not emotionally altered in any lingering way.

It’s a lot of soapy melodrama and underdeveloped characters that never really go anywhere.