F. Scott Fitzgerald's landmark novel The Great Gatsby is regarded as one of the greatest American novels ever written. But director Baz Luhrmann version of The Great Gatsby is a spectacular misfire, proving that even a story regarded in the highest esteem won't enrapture viewers on film if the director can't get out of his own way. Much like he did with Moulin Rouge, Luhrmann empties his full bag of tricks, including a wild kaleidoscope of colors, modern music juxtaposed with a time gone by, and relentless high-energy. As appealing as it might sound on paper, the result at times resembles a train wreck. Hammy acting, a romance that keeps us at arms length, a narrator who simply won't shut up, and some extremely questionable stylistic choices combine to form a tale that never feels real at any moment during its 143-minute running time.
The story begins with Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) telling his story to a psychiatrist in a sanitarium. Flashing back to 1922, where Nick has moved to New York to sell bonds, we meet the main players in the drama. They include Nick's cousin, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), her husband, Tom (Joel Edgerton), and Daisy's best friend, golfer Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki). Finally, there's party organizer extraordinaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), who lives at a mansion next to Nick's cottage. He befriends Nick at a lavish party, but he has motives other than friendship. Gatsby and Daisy were once romantically entangled, and Gatsby wants to Nick to a arrange a tea party where he "accidentally" meets Daisy and ignites the first spark to rekindle the former flame. And Tom has a mistress of his own in the person of Myrtle Wilson (Isla Fisher), the wife of gas station owner George Wilson (Jason Clarke).
The Great Gatsby as filtered through Baz Luhrmann wants to be an epic, sweeping romance that also delves deep into the idea of how The American Dream can easily rot from the inside out. The themes of wealth and superficiality are present, but they're delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Luhrmann's method of making this story feel poetic is to have Nick constantly yammering about what certain characters are feeling during key scenes. It's distracting, annoying, and insulting to even a high school-aged viewer, let alone a literary or movie-going veteran. To make matters worse, certain passages of Nick's novel appear as pop-up words on the screen as he's typing and talking. The occasional effective directorial flourish Luhrmann brings to the table (such as keeping the title character's face hidden for several scenes before finally, spectacularly unveiling him) is ultimately lost in a sea of sensory overload.
But it doesn't end there. Much has been made of how this cinematic vision of Gatsby incorporates music from Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Lana del Rey. Some accuse it of shamelessly pandering to the 25-and-under demographic, but I won't go quite that far. There's no denying, however, that whenever one of these songs enters the fray, the viewer is jarred out of the moment with the force of a whiplash. Luhrmann incorporated this sort of thing very inventively in Moulin Rouge, but that movie was set up as a musical/fantasy set in a world intentionally divorced from reality. Here, the setting is undeniably the Roaring Twenties, so a jazzed-up version of Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" is literally the last thing anyone expects or wants. What's even more baffling is that halfway through the film, the film drops all anachronisms and tells the story "straight." Consistency is not a hallmark here; you have to wonder why they bothered with the modern songs at all.
As much as Leonardo DiCaprio looks the part of Jay Gatsby, this is not a performance that the actor can highlight on his resume alongside The Departed, Blood Diamond, and Django Unchained. Even Inception, which wasn't an actors' movie, showcased him better than this. There are far too many instances where this is too obviously a performance, especially when his character repeatedly and listlessly utters the catchphrase, "old sport." I understand that catchphrase is part of who the character is, but in this movie, it comes across as staged. Opposite him, Carey Mulligan, who has been wonderful in a wide variety of roles, is competent but hardly beguiling as Daisy. And Joel Edgerton is embarassingly over-the-top; I kept waiting for him to twirl his pencil-thin mustache and let out a cackle. Together, these three form a romantic triangle that should keep us involved and caring but instead feels like a run-of-the-mill soap opera. Only Tobey Maguire seems at home in his role as the outsider of the drama, but only when actually playing the character. When narrating, it's obvious from the start that he lacks the pipes to pull this off.
The Great Gatsby was moved from a Fall 2012 release date to early summer of 2013, and that's a wise choice on the part of the distributor. Thrown into the fire against a mighty crop of 2012 Oscar hopefuls, Luhrmann's film would've been eaten alive. I'll admit that this movie, from a detached perspective, is a visual feast, and there are individual scenes (like Tom consoling a heartbroken George Wilson and the title character's eventual demise) that work on their own terms. But it's clear from the finished product that the filmmakers spent far too much effort in making the movie look and feel "cool" and not enough on genuine emotion and narrative thrust. Ultimately, Gatsby for Dummies feels like a better title.
Rating: ** out of ****
As much as Leonardo DiCaprio looks the part of Jay Gatsby, this is not a performance that the actor can highlight on his resume alongside The Departed, Blood Diamond, and Django Unchained. Even Inception, which wasn't an actors' movie, showcased him better than this. There are far too many instances where this is too obviously a performance, especially when his character repeatedly and listlessly utters the catchphrase, "old sport." I understand that catchphrase is part of who the character is, but in this movie, it comes across as staged. Opposite him, Carey Mulligan, who has been wonderful in a wide variety of roles, is competent but hardly beguiling as Daisy. And Joel Edgerton is embarassingly over-the-top; I kept waiting for him to twirl his pencil-thin mustache and let out a cackle. Together, these three form a romantic triangle that should keep us involved and caring but instead feels like a run-of-the-mill soap opera. Only Tobey Maguire seems at home in his role as the outsider of the drama, but only when actually playing the character. When narrating, it's obvious from the start that he lacks the pipes to pull this off.
The Great Gatsby was moved from a Fall 2012 release date to early summer of 2013, and that's a wise choice on the part of the distributor. Thrown into the fire against a mighty crop of 2012 Oscar hopefuls, Luhrmann's film would've been eaten alive. I'll admit that this movie, from a detached perspective, is a visual feast, and there are individual scenes (like Tom consoling a heartbroken George Wilson and the title character's eventual demise) that work on their own terms. But it's clear from the finished product that the filmmakers spent far too much effort in making the movie look and feel "cool" and not enough on genuine emotion and narrative thrust. Ultimately, Gatsby for Dummies feels like a better title.
Rating: ** out of ****
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