Brilliant and Top Notch

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2019)

10 May 2013. First there was the overly confident young punk quick draw in The Quick and the Dead (1995) and of course the major breakthrough as the impoverished heartthrob of Titanic (1997) two years later, and only a year later the fascinating duel role in The Man in the Iron Mask between the innocent, naÃ¯ve young man and the opulent, narcissistic king. Along with the multi-role characters of Catch Me If You Can (2002), the intensely personal portrait of a secretive life of Howard Hughes in The Aviator in 2004, Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby is bigger than life, just as the movie Titanic he starred in. The captivated, close-up starry and bloodshot eyes of Daisy was immediately spell-binding who starred in one of the most memorable Dr. Who television episodes (2007) as Sally Sparrow. Finally, and the anchor of the movie with his co-starring presence in and his strong voice-over storytelling throughout the movie of Tobey Maguire kept this over-stylized and adult fairytale grounded with substantive insight and figurative narrative that captured the essence of fictional writing. As equally satisfying is Tobey Maguire's character's own backstory that begins and ends the movie, echoing the voice over and more hidden presence found in Stand By Me (1986).
The only glaring weaknesses come in the beginning half of the movie where the art design landscape backdrop at one point was too obviously animated in its appearance and the audio track was out of sync with the too apparent impression of the voices being dubbed, oddly in contrast to the criticism that came from the live audio musical singing experienced in Les Miserables (2012).
What was particularly fascinating was the editing and fusion of both movie and novel storytelling along with the incorporation of writings graphics. With the suggestive, visual magic of Moulin Rouge (2001) in the first half, this richly romantic drama brought back the intense relational emotive heart wrenching story of romantic love that made Titanic so successful. The evolving garishness of this the period drama has the similar elements of the culturally explosive backdrop of the romance drama Slumdog Millionaire (2008), the dark richness of the tangled triangular relationship of Interview with a Vampire (1995), or the more spiritual fantasy of enduring love in What Dreams May Come (1998) and even DeCaprio's more recent love interest in Inception (2010).
The romantic connection of intimacy resonates at the same level as period love drama The Reader (2008) or the ending of If Only (2004), the love epic The English Patient (1996). At the opposite superlative end, just as overly-stylized and hyper-dramatic and over the top in the musical Chicago (2002) way or the fascinating visually stunning style of the more recent silent love story of The Artist (2011), the French romantic class A Man and A Woman (1966) captured the richness of the direct, black and white emotive simplicity of romantic love. This movie echoes the bigger than life enduring romance found in the Civil War love story of Cold Mountain (2003) or even one the movie classic of all time Doctor Zhivago (1965). This remake of The Great Gatsby is the stand out movie of the big hits of the 2013 season, making it Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress nominee material.