Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, and A&E Television Networks present The Great Gatsby. Directed by Baz Luhrmann. Adapted for the screen from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Elizabeth Debicki, Isla Fisher, and Jack Thompson. Cinematography by Simon Duggan. 142 minutes. Rated PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying, and brief language.
Based on my favorite novel I was forced to read in high school, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby is another failed attempt to bring the acclaimed novel to the big screen. While Luhrmann's style flourishes may grab fans of his Red Curtain trilogy (including Moulin Rouge), for many moviegoers they detract from the attempts at acting and overall story.
Once again, a novel of big social ideas is "condensed" to its basic action in this overlong film, unfortunately most of which is noveau riche Gatsby's grandiose and shallow parties he throws every weekend, hoping his former lover Daisy (here portrayed in languid waif fashion by Carey Mulligan) will show up and be impressed. This is not one of Leonardo DiCaprio's finest roles--he fights a losing battle against the directorial bombast and generally doesn't try too hard. Daisy's rich socialite husband Tom Buchanan is portrayed by Joel Edgerton and sports a pencil mustache, but should have had a bar-handled mustache to twirl in his hammy performance. As with previous film adaptations, Nick Carraway's (Tobey Maguire) characterization comes off best, Maguire being perfectly suited for the role of the World War I veteran and working class neighbor who has much more in common with Gatsby than he first thinks.
For all its visual flash, the film has a traditional narrator in Maguire's Nick Carraway, often using voice overs and annoying floating text passages from the novel on the screen. For the latter, Luhrmann may be taking advantage of the 3-D technology, yet the spoken and printed words come off more like telling than showing emotions and events for the audience. Luhrmann filmed the production with 3-D cameras, but other than Gatsby and Nick speeding into New York City for the first time together in Gatsby's yellow Duesenberg, the effect is more of an unnecessary distraction than storytelling aid. And fast motion camera effects make Tom Buchanan's drunken debauchery with his mistress (Isla Fisher) look like a comic musical sequence out of Moulin Rouge, possibly to keep the film in the PG-13 range.
For all its visual flash, the film has a traditional narrator in Maguire's Nick Carraway, often using voice overs and annoying floating text passages from the novel on the screen. For the latter, Luhrmann may be taking advantage of the 3-D technology, yet the spoken and printed words come off more like telling than showing emotions and events for the audience. Luhrmann filmed the production with 3-D cameras, but other than Gatsby and Nick speeding into New York City for the first time together in Gatsby's yellow Duesenberg, the effect is more of an unnecessary distraction than storytelling aid. And fast motion camera effects make Tom Buchanan's drunken debauchery with his mistress (Isla Fisher) look like a comic musical sequence out of Moulin Rouge, possibly to keep the film in the PG-13 range.
What make the viewing experience particularly frustrating are sequences that do work. Visual highlights include the first Gatsby party Nick attends, an intentionally over-the-top and amusing scene where Nick's bromance hits a crescendo as Rhapsody in Blue booms on the soundtrack and fireworks explode behind Gatsby's head as he comes into Nick's view, DiCaprio's smiling face illuminated. Actors somehow are able to get a word in edgewise in Luhrmann's visual noise as Gatsby and Daisy meet again at Nick's staged tea party, DiCaprio and Mulligan capturing their awkwardness and continued affection for one another. Edgerton even manages an effective scene as Tom Buchanan confronts Gatsby about the affair with Daisy.
Unfortunately, these moments are scattered through a long motion picture. This version of The Great Gatsby is like one of Jay Gatsby's shindigs: some exuberant and giddy highs followed by sluggish lows and those hung-over guests who don't know when to go home. Please, just read the book.
My rating: ** out of ****.
Unfortunately, these moments are scattered through a long motion picture. This version of The Great Gatsby is like one of Jay Gatsby's shindigs: some exuberant and giddy highs followed by sluggish lows and those hung-over guests who don't know when to go home. Please, just read the book.
My rating: ** out of ****.
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