A great movie

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2017)

I really like this movie because its plot is very enjoyable, but it has also a moral and it wants to impart a message to the viewers that, in my opinion, can be read in several ways. An important symbol of this film are the eyes on the billboard advertising, that we can see several times; this symbol is absolutely related with the opening lines of the film ("In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice. Always try to see the best in people"), in which the narrator, Nick Carraway, told us that usually he does not judge other people and he always tries to find the best aspects in everybody, also when the positive aspects are not so evident. The eyes on the billboard do the same: they are a metaphor of the eyes of God, which looks and observes everything in our world, but God never takes part in our affairs and actions, he never says us anything; however he always knows everything (in fact only Nick and these eyes know what really happen in the car crash) and he also knows that, also if this world is not always fair (for example with Gatsby it is not) one day he will judge everybody fairly. Another important symbol of this story is the green light that we see in the first scene of the film: according to me, this light could represent the aims and the dreams which everybody has, which not always we can achieve; but hope is the last to die, and this is the reason why in the scene of his death, Gatsby sees for the last time the light, he hears the phone ringing and hopes that Daisy has finally chosen him. Daisy and Tom Buchanan represent the richest part of the society, which is used to the welfare, because they have own it for generations, and they could do everything to maintain it, therefore they are careless about all the other person that they meet. At first the viewer can think that Gatsby is one of them, but actually he is completely different: he is a self-made man that was born poor and has made all his riches during his life. Moreover he, unlike them, is ready to lose everything for the only girl that he ever truly love: Daisy. I think that finally Daisy decides to stay with Tom not just because she does not have a strong personality to leave her husband, but mainly because she subconsciously knows that she is more similar to Tom than Gatsby. The most significant locations of this romance are: the swimming pool of the Gatsby's house, which is associated with Gatsby, because during the parties lots of drunk and happy people used to swim in his pool, enjoying his hospitality, but in the same pool he is killed, alone, without nobody that really care about him. The Perkins Sanitarium, which is associated with Nick Carraway, and represents the problems that this character has after his experiences in New York, and the difficulties for him to make sense of what happened. The garden of the Buchanan's house, which is associated with Tom, Daisy and all those people only interested in keep their reaches and earn always more money, without caring about anybody else. The garage where the Myrtle's husband works, which represents all those poor people that work a lots but have a low salary and so are ready to do everything for the rich people. According to me the moral of this story is that we always have to try to reach our aims, achieve our dreams, also if this path looks too hard, too far or too difficult for us. On the other hand we have also to understand when the dreams that we are looking for, are already behind us: we can't live into the past, also if it keeps on holding us, and we have to go towards the future, like "...boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly...".