Review: The Great Gatsby
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton
The roaring twenties; a time of post-war euphoria, alcohol flowing carelessness and the backdrop of one of America's most iconic novels: The Great Gatsby.
Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the title really should resonate with anyone who has suffered studied through their Higher English exams and as such, this latest adaptation from director Baz Luhrmann is likely to grab the attention of the masses thanks to its big name cast and even bigger visuals.
Delayed for over five months to allow a completely unnecessary 3D conversion, The Great Gatsby does stay very faithful to its source material with around 80% of the dialogue and narration ripped more or less directly from the novel. But despite its bravely contemporary soundtrack and the best efforts of its stars, this particular adaptation of Fitzgerald's finest falls into the biggest traps of modern cinema: all style and no substance.
Luhrmann instead tries to hit a middle ground where die-hard fans of the book, or at least those who remember it from school, will be just as entertained as those entering the cinema for a fresh movie experience. The problem is that The Great Gatsby is an unadaptable novel in such a sense, and Luhrmann almost seems to know it by throwing hundreds of flashy visuals and Jay-Z songs at us in the hope it will distract from the fact that he doesn't quite know what he's doing.
His cast does, however. Tobey Maguire kicks off the proceedings as the perfectly respectable Nick Carraway, a young writer who heads to New York in 1922 - an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz parties, bootlegging kings and a stock market soaring sky high. With the American dream on his mind, Nick moves in next door to a wealthy bachelor named Jay Gatsby, a mysterious man who throws lavish parties at his mansion but rarely actually appears at them.
Across the water live Nick's cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom. As Nick enters Gatsby's life and attempts to learn more about the man, it soon becomes abundantly clear that Gatsby is chasing an American dream of his own - one that draws Nick into the world of the super-rich and the selfish secrets they hold.
If there is one actor who could possibly pull off a pink suit, it's Leonardo DiCaprio and luckily he also hits the mark with his portrayal of Gatsby too. Across from him (quite literally), Carey Mulligan adds another superb performance to her CV with an astonishingly complex play of Daisy. The scenes which they have together are romantic and tense in equal measure, and it's clear that they actually understand the characters and their trials much more than Baz Luhrmann himself.
That's not to knock the director too much; The Great Gatsby does look fantastic, with each over the top party at Gatsby's mansion more colourful than the last and, as the summer hots up over the course of the film so too does the soundtrack. Luhrmann took an enormous risk with the purists by placing the likes of Jay-Z and the frankly insufferable Lana Del Ray over the aesthetics, but most of it works. It's fitting that in a movie exploring an era of exaggeration and excess, those artificial, enhanced musical scores accompany the shady deeds of the cast.
The standout moments from the novel are given just the right treatment too, such as that iconic confrontation scene between Tom and Gatsby in the hotel room. DiCaprio is absolutely terrific and Joel Edgerton refuses to be overshadowed, giving Tom an ambiguously sympathetic air that translates well to the audience.
Still, good performances and visuals aside, there is a consistent sense that while The Great Gatsby stays close to its source material to an intense level (Maguire's deliverance of the final few lines "ceaselessly borne into the past..." are particularly affecting), Luhrmann simply doesn't have a fixed view of what the whole story is supposed to deal with. Metaphors for the bigger picture are thrown at us rather than subtly hinted at - the green light at the end of Daisy's dock is shown at least a dozen times - and things occasionally become so visually cluttered at the start that it's a worry. Does a story about lost love, desperation and the American dream really warrant so much CGI?
Then there's the framing device for the narrative itself, one which strays from the novel entirely. Nick in a psychiatric hospital, recounting the events to a doctor? Fitzgerald would have glared on that bizarre plot point like the eyes of T.J Eckleburg.
That's not to knock the director too much; The Great Gatsby does look fantastic, with each over the top party at Gatsby's mansion more colourful than the last and, as the summer hots up over the course of the film so too does the soundtrack. Luhrmann took an enormous risk with the purists by placing the likes of Jay-Z and the frankly insufferable Lana Del Ray over the aesthetics, but most of it works. It's fitting that in a movie exploring an era of exaggeration and excess, those artificial, enhanced musical scores accompany the shady deeds of the cast.
The standout moments from the novel are given just the right treatment too, such as that iconic confrontation scene between Tom and Gatsby in the hotel room. DiCaprio is absolutely terrific and Joel Edgerton refuses to be overshadowed, giving Tom an ambiguously sympathetic air that translates well to the audience.
Still, good performances and visuals aside, there is a consistent sense that while The Great Gatsby stays close to its source material to an intense level (Maguire's deliverance of the final few lines "ceaselessly borne into the past..." are particularly affecting), Luhrmann simply doesn't have a fixed view of what the whole story is supposed to deal with. Metaphors for the bigger picture are thrown at us rather than subtly hinted at - the green light at the end of Daisy's dock is shown at least a dozen times - and things occasionally become so visually cluttered at the start that it's a worry. Does a story about lost love, desperation and the American dream really warrant so much CGI?
Then there's the framing device for the narrative itself, one which strays from the novel entirely. Nick in a psychiatric hospital, recounting the events to a doctor? Fitzgerald would have glared on that bizarre plot point like the eyes of T.J Eckleburg.
Summary
All in all then, it's good enough. While Baz Luhrmann makes The Great Gatsby looks just as beautiful as you'd expect from the man behind Moulin Rouge, there is an over-abundance of CGI and visual panache that suggests the director knows more about cinematography than storytelling. But the performances of the cast, particularly a spot-on Leonardo DiCaprio as the man himself ensure that The Great Gatsby is an entertaining and suitably tragic ode to America's classic novel. Some fans looking for more layers may just want to return to the book itself though - after all, you can't repeat the past.
7/10 - Good
See it if you liked: Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), Midnight In Paris (2011)
Good review Dean. DiCaprio is amazing, as usual, but everything else seems to be falling apart around him here.
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