Out of control materialism.

Rating: 8/10 (22 May 2013)

This movie features one of the most atrocious beginnings of a major motion picture in recent years. Instead of starting off on an intimate note and then building up to a climactic conclusion, the movie opens with a man in a mental hospital trying to tell a story and then cutting to scenes of seemingly nonstop raucous partying, throwing at the audience an almost endless barrage of noise which completely distracts from the narrator's attempt to engage the audience and causes one to ask: "When will this stop?" This mistake is magnified by the injection of hip-hop music which not only is inconsistent with the historical period of the story, the 1920s, but which is completely discordant for a character like Gatsby, for whom trumpets and flourishes befitting royalty would have been far more appropriate. In short, the movie uses the wrong kind of music as a build up to Gatsby's entrance, which not unexpectedly falls flat. Yet, the movie recovers. This movie is about the flaunting of wealth and the emptiness of life in a society in which materialism is worshiped as a god. This theme is driven home through the character of J. Gatsby. Gatsby, who was born poor, believes that his self-worth is based upon the amount of wealth that he can accumulate, and that without wealth, he is not worthy of love. Yet, Gatsby is no mere caricature of a rich man wallowing in wealth; just the opposite is the case. Personally, he is handsome, debonair, charming, intelligent, cheerful, friendly, supportive, generous, and courageous. But it is all a façade concealing a checkered past. Taking his cues from a culture which places materialism and accumulation above all else, he too must accumulate his money and things and engage in ostentatious displays of wealth, not for his personal enjoyment, for he is fundamentally indifferent to all his props, but to show that he is somebody of worth. "Judge me not by who I am but by what I have." As a result, his life is empty, all by his own doing. When Gatsby is confronted with the fact of his own deceitfulness, he falls apart, and that is his undoing. From that moment he starts spiraling downward to his doom. Gatsby cannot accept the fact that all that he has acquired means nothing, because if his wealth means nothing, then he is nothing. The first half-hour or so of this movie excepted, this movie is an excellent drama featuring strong and evocative performances, led by Leonardo Di Caprio, who, once again, proves that he is one of the premier principal actors in Hollywood today. Carey Mulligan is also outstanding as Daisy, who is Gatsby's love interest. However, the strongest performance is that of Joel Edgerton's, which attains a level of power worthy of an Academy Award nomination. All in all, this movie is a credible interpretation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and should be watched by all who value high quality drama and movies.