A "Great" Movie

Rating: 10/10 (19 October 2013)

Baz Luhrmann's newest movie, The Great Gatsby, is, to put it simply, great. From start to finish, the acting, screenplay, directing, and soundtrack were all played out and put together to perfection. The movie is based off of the book of the same title, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The book is regarded as one of the greatest works of American literature, and one of the best books ever written. Empire magazine listed it at number two on its list of the Top 100 Books of the Twentieth Century, placing it behind only the Ulysses (which appears in the movie Gatsby for that same reason.) It is a near impossible task to display the greatness of the book on the big screen, but Luhrmann is able to pull it off in the second major motion picture based off on Fitzgerald's masterpiece.
To summarize briefly, The Great Gatsby, set in New York 1922, is narrated by Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), and is a story about the millionaire Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), who desperately tries to recover the one person he ever loved, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). She is married somewhat happily to Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), also another very rich fellow. The other characters consist of professional golfer Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Dibicki), Tom Wilson (Jason Clarke), a gas station owner, and his wife Myrtle (Isla Fisher.) When Nick moves next door to Gatsby in West Egg, he is eventually invited to one Gatsby's famous parties and the story takes off. For those of you who have not read the book, I don't want to spoil much more, but I will say that there are numerous parties, an extremely haunting song by Lana Del Rey, grainy footage style flashbacks, and eventually death.
Is Baz Luhrmann's flashy, art deco movie worth your time? Well, if you like to watch good movies then this is one you need to see. If you want to be taken back to the roaring twenties then this movie will do that, and more for you.