Razzle-Dazzle Gatsby

Rating: 6/10 (16 January 2017)

Luhrmann is an exceptional director. Not in the sense that he is extraordinarily competent, consistent and deep, but rather he is a one of a kind visual pioneer. His fast paced, unusual, anachronic dazzling and lush visual signature though are not suitable for every material.
With Moulin Rouge! he gave us an extraordinarily unusual film where his ecstatic style could exist and had more than enough room to grow. While The Great Gatsby material allows for some of such liberties to exist, Luhrmann lacks editorial notion: while the partying flair is on point, all the rest is taken either too far or too short at times. The characters motivations and inner struggles are completely overwhelmed by the overbearing sets, cinematography and score (all of them amazing truth be told) and music video-like editing that never allows us to delve or empathize with them. Luhrmann even manages to make DiCaprio feel flat and out of place and Mulligan miscast. What we are left with is a 2-hour-plus long music video with talking passages, that while visually stunning and musically memorable, feels frustrating considering the source material's potentials and the talent involved.