Not great Gatsby

Rating: 6/10 (20 May 2013)

Almost 40 years on from the last Hollywood adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's modern classic comes Baz Lurrmann's take on the tale. To my eyes, the movie stays close to the novel as indeed did Robert Wise's 1974 version which starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, making me subconsciously compare actors as well as scenes which were similar in both movies.
I have to say, I prefer the 70's version. It would be easy to chide Luhrmann's use of modern music for so much of the background music, so chide I will, I certainly don't want to be thinking of Beyonce Knowles in a too obvious stab at a younger audience, when watching a film that tries so hard in many other ways to capture the hedonistic "Jazz Age" era of post-War, Prohibition-bound.
Thus the director goes to town in the party scenes at Gatsby's home, but a lot of it seems like window-dressing. I have casting issues too with Tobey McGuire's simpering goofiness at odds with his character's crucial part as a detached witness. I also felt that Carey Mulligan failed to convince as the impressionable Daisy Buchanan and that as her husband likewise struggled to adequately counterpoint Leonardo DiCaprio's title role.
Much will be made, no doubt of his pivotal portrayal of the doomed Gatsby. For me he acted naturally and with some style but failed to cast off an air of boyishness which for me was at odds with the deeper demands of his character. Nobody else leapt out at me either from the supporting cast, leaving me with the overall impression that the film, though pretty on-the-eye is let down by its actors who steadfastly refuse to leap off the printed page and imbed themselves in the memory.
The shifting narrative view-point didn't help much either so that in the end I was forced to the admittedly obvious conclusion about the film serving the eye better than the brain.