Ansel Elgort stars as Theo Decker in the movie adaptation of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Theo is an antiques seller who lost his mom as a young boy during a terrorist attack while they were both at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The trailer flashes back and forth between Theo’s life now and the immediate aftermath of the attack, when he was sent to live with family friends before his deadbeat dad (Luke Wilson) and his girlfriend (Sarah Paulson) relocated him to Las Vegas.
“In Amsterdam, I dreamt I saw my mother again, same beautiful pale blue eyes,” Elgort narrates at the beginning of the trailer. “When I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might’ve led me some place happier.”
Through it all, Theo hangs onto a Dutch painting of a goldfinch chained to a perch, which he stole from the museum after surviving the attack. The painting was his mother’s favorite and she was showing it to him minutes before she was killed in the bombing.
Also in the film is Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Barbour, the family friend who takes in Theo and helps him cope after losing his mom. He also relies on Jeffrey Wright’s Hobie, who he eventually works for when he joins Hobie’s antique shop. The movie follows as an adult Theo struggles with substance abuse and finds himself embroiled in a web of lies that eventually lead him from New York to Amsterdam. The Goldfinch, from Brooklyn director John Crowley, hits theaters Sept. 13.
