The Great Gatsby - Best film of 2013

Rating: 9/10 (28 August 2013)

I don't think I've ever read The Great Gatsby. I know it is required reading in a lot of High School English Lit classes, but I'm fairly certain, surprisingly enough, that I didn't take English Lit - not even in College (I took French and Spanish instead). Always the practical one, who knew that I'd end up being "forced" to read all the classics anyway?
After a string of misfires (I hated Shutter Island and Inception) Leonardo DiCaprio returns to form. He is perfect as Gatsby. He deserves an Oscar nomination for this performance. Gatsby is a complicated, yet simple man. His entire existence is his desire to get the girl, Daisy (Carey Mulligan) that he foolishly let go of.
This is a role that was tailor made for DiCaprio. If DiCaprio wasn't already an A list mega star, this movie would have made him one. He just oozes off the screen and is simply radiant here (can I use the word radiant to talk about a guy?).
In any other hands, Daisy could easily be hated and come across as shallow, naive, and as someone just going through life, but Mulligan brings a lot of hidden layers to Daisy. You can see the inner conflict through her expressive eyes.
As wild and over the top as Moulin Rouge Director Baz Luhrmann usually is; The Great Gatsby is his most assured, straightforward, gimmick free (not counting 3D) film to date. From a pure story telling and directing standpoint it is by the numbers. There are very few scenes that made me feel like I took a bad acid trip. Even the party scenes are beautifully shot and framed here.
Much has been written about the modern mixing of Hip Hop with 20's era Jazz and how it wouldn't work. Luhrmann actually did an amazing job of not overdoing the gimmick. Yes, it is noticeable, but he uses it very sparingly, so it never took me out of the movie.
There was one scene when they were on the bridge and they passed a car that had rich black people in and they were playing Jay-Z's Izzo (HOVA). It was odd and random just to have rich black people appear out of nowhere. I loved Luhrmann use of various versions Lana Del Rey's song Young and Beautiful in the love scenes. It really added texture and emotion to the romance.
One of the most beautiful moments in the movie comes when Gatsby is lamenting everything that he's lost, and Tobey Maguire (Nick Carraway) says, "You can't repeat the past" and Gatsby responds with an earnest "Of course you can old sport," such a simple but impactful moment.
Generally, I'm not a fan of narration, but Maguire does an amazing job with the lyrical prose used in this movie. Maguire gives a mature, nuanced performance here where you can really see his love and infatuation for Gatsby grow while his distaste for his friend Tom Buchannan (a wonderfully evil Joel Edgerton) increases. At times it almost seemed as if Nick wanted to jump Gatsby's bones.
This is my favorite film of 2013. It hit all my buttons – beautifully shot, very hopeful (but with an ultimately sad end), and had some flashes of brilliant prose.