The Great Gatsby Movie Review
Pretty but not great.
The day after I saw this film a friend asked me what I thought and I replied “Kind of pretty but not a lot else” at which point she said “That’s too bad. I love Baz Luhrmann.” This struck me as odd as I had never heard of this guy before seeing about 800,000 The Making of the Great Gatsby shorts Regal Cinima liked to shove onto the screen prior to showing the actual trailers over the last several months. Could it be he was some icon of film making that my low brow taste in movies caused me to miss, like an Austrailian Lars von Trier? A quick look at his filmography assured me that I had not missed much, although it explained why my female friend was a fan of his. Basically he makes great visual chick movies like Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom. I can honestly say I have never seen any of his other films and am not going to rush out to find them.
This film has fallen victim to it’s own marketing. I have seen the same trailer for it before every movie for the last six months. This translates into a lot of times. The trailer shows all kinds of action, with explosive WWI scenes, a huge sailing boat, guys beating up other guys, Gatsby walking in out of the rain looking like he’s ready to kick 8 kinds of ass, and above all a cool yellow car tearing ass through New York city. The car was there and played it’s part, but for the most part every other really cool exciting scene had little to nothing to do with the actual movie. Most of them were flashbacks or parts of sub plots. I spent most of the movie willing something exciting to happen.
I have never read the Great Gatsby. My high school was in most ways sub par, unless you think having a state championship surf team is remotely significant. I don’t see this as inhibiting my ability to review this film as all movies need to be able to stand on its own run time with no prerequisites. However my best friend is a huge fan of the book and filled me in on a lot of stuff. It’s basically a story about decadence and privileged in the 20’s. The main characters sole motivation for injecting himself into that society was to win over vain, superficial socialite Daisy. She is supposed to be everything one could despise in that society, epitomizing what some see as the class struggle depicted in the book.
The parts of the movie that bugged the hell out of me ironically turned out to be the parts that it looks like Baz Lurhmann opted to change or not bother to portray. Instead of showing Daisy to be a vain golddigger he presents her as a kind, gentle spirit with a load of compassion and depth. In addition to illustrating the danger of directors falling in love with their lead characters it also makes her final decisions and actions in the last 20 minutes so at odds with her character that I kept looking for body snatcher pods in the greenery. The disparity was jarring and off putting. If you spend most of a movie establishing a character you can’t have her pull a U turn without any kind of motivation. There was also a tertiary attempt at showing the difference between the lavish and tasteless decadence of the upper classes and the struggling working class, but it was so glossed over that you could walk away with the feeling that there was no consequence to letting the proletariat eat cake. The narrator, while starting off as a main character himself, turns into the physical manifestation of deus ex machina and ends up having the personality of the background scenery. Gatsby himself is well portrayed by Leonardo di Caprio, but you don’t meet him for the first 40 minutes of the film and most of the time he seems so over the top you have a hard time identifying with him.
Also, ultimately this story is a total bummer. My friend tells me at least that part is true to the book but that doesn’t make it easier to absorb. A sad ending is great when it is well portrayed (if you want to see an amazing sad story watch the Deer Hunter) but at the end of a film that seems to want to have all the depth of a kiddie pool it feels out of place. It’s like Baz suddenly realized his movie was more glitz than content and cranked in a last minute deep ending. The parts don’t all seem to match (yes, I know this is the true ending from the book. I just call them like I see them, and I’m willing to bet the book had a lot more depth throughout).
By the way, is it fair to be truly annoyed that IMDB doesn’t even list F. Scott Fitzgerald as a writer in the main credits? For shame.
Before I get into the story I’d like to mentions something about the visuals. In that making of video I have seen about 100 times Baz talks about wanting to keep the aesthetic of the 20’s. In order to do so he uses extensive CGI and it shows, although not in a good way. Huge swaths of the film look like any of the daylight scenes of Coruscant from Star Wars Episode II or III. It just looks cartoonish and unreal. A certain amount of unreality is acceptable in science fiction but in a period piece like this one it just feels wrong. Also the effort put in to justify shooting this in 3D was considerable and for the most part wasted. I live for the day Hollywood realizes that 3D is a massive waste of time and money.
The story. Nick Carraway (Tobey McGuire-Spider Man and not a whole lot else. Spider-man image courtesy of the Marvel Comic T Shirt category) starts off in a mental institution recounting the events that lead him here (this, by the way, is another plot device that Baz created that does not exist in the book and it really bugged. Don’t mess with the classics IMO). This thin premise allows him to do a voice over narration detailing his life in West Egg, a Long Island community. He has a cottage next to the biggest mansion in the world or so. He connects with his old Yale classmate Tom Buchannon (Joel Edgerton-Warrior, the Thing, Revenge of the Sith), to whom he seems to have no loyalty. Tom is married to Nicks cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan-Drive, an Education, Pride and Prejudice), a hauntingly beautiful socialite. They all have tea together with Daisy’s freakishly tall friend Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki-A Few Best Men) where Nick is told about Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who throws lavish parties in the very mansion Nick lives next to.
Nick eventually meets Gatsby (Leonardo di Caprio-Inception, Titanic, Shutter Island), who recruits him into helping set up a meeting between Daisy and he. He knew Daisy before the war and has been enamored of him ever since but for some mysterious reason she married Tom. Meanwhile Tom is having an affair with Myrtle (Isla Fisher-Rango, Rise of the Guardians, Home and Away), the wife of lower class auto mechanic George (Jason Clarke-Zero Dark Thirty, Lawless, Death Race). Gatsby finally gets his meeting with Daisy, and starts to woo her. At that point the story is supposed to be about Daisy’s conflict between her rich husband and rich boyfriend, but honestly it just seemed like she was all one way and then jumped ship with no thought whatsoever.
The stars.
I have to give Baz credit for ambition, and for attempting to tell a story that does not fit in the normal Hollywood demographic. Two stars. Visually stunning at parts, and the attention to detail and costuming was amazing. One star. Leonardo did his usual great job. When exactly did I become a fan of his? I used to hate the guy. One star. Joel Edgerton also did a very fine job. One star. Aside from the cartoon like CGI the camera work and editing were impressive, with a lot of cool shots that go beyond the pale. One star. The movie ran a massive 143 minutes but managed to not feel like it, so great editing and pacing. One star. Carey Mulligan has the face that should inspire great paintings and sculptures, and Elizabeth Debicki is pretty damned hot as well. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes.
The movie really failed to latch on to any of the available themes from the book, and left me wondering “Why did all that happen exactly?”. One black hole. The insane asylum gag was hackneyed and cliche. For that matter I had a hard time taking anything Tobey McGuire did seriously. One black hole. The Daisy character was grossly underdeveloped, and what was presented of her was at odds with the character she was supposed to play. She bounced back and forth like a Ping Pong ball and had about as much volition. One black hole. There were a lot of sub plots that I’m sure are huge in the book but in here they needed to be explored a little more. Also a general lack of character motivation. One black hole. I have said before I rarely pay attention to a sound track and it has to be really bad or really good for me to even notice, and in this case it was really bad. A sound track should help you with the immersion, reinforcing the visuals and helping to set the tone. Having a film set in the 20’s but have songs by Jay-Z and Beyonce is completely wrong. It’s like watching Col. Kurtz get killed at the end of Apocalypse Now and have Barbie Girl by Aqua playing in the background (except that might have some LOL points that this film lacks). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of three stars. Meh. Worth seeing if you are a huge Leonardo fan or just like watching rich people party. If you do want to see it be sure to do so on a big screen as the visual are nice. Date movie? Absolutely, 100% yes. The costumes, period, and romance will definitely hold your date’s interest, and if she has ever considered not going out with you because you are not rich this film will guilt the hell out of her. As an illustration of how women can be painfully shallow and bring about the destruction of otherwise decent film this film should be required viewing for all single women (not that I’m bitter). Bathroom break? At 143 minutes you are going to need something. Honestly any of the party scenes are pretty repetitive and one could be missed easily, but they are all in the first half of the film. The actual romance scenes between Gatsby and Daisy don’t do a whole lot so go then (unless you are on a date. If so hold it and use that chance to hold her hand or something).
Thanks for reading. I plan to see Peeples tonight. It looks awful but I have been enjoying a lot of decent films lately so eventually I guess I have to pay the piper. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review please post them here. Any off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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