Not great but still pretty good

Rating: 8/10 (21 May 2013)

I have come to terms with the fact that we will likely never see a perfect film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. It may not be as unfilmable as, say, The Catcher in the Rye, but it's still a difficult one to pull off. Baz Luhrmann does a good job with his reimagining of the source material, staying faithful to the letter of the novel while taking away some of its thematic depth.
The visuals are fantastic: it really brings the fast-paced, excessive world of the book to life. The costumes are gorgeous as well. The music did nothing for me, but then again I don't like rap or most modern music anyway, so I won't hold that against the film. The performances are mostly adequate, the only standouts being Leonardo DiCaprio as the title character and Elizabeth Debicki as the woefully underused Jordan Baker. DiCaprio is marvelous in the lead; I usually find him merely passable as an actor but here he really shines and brings a lot of passion to the role. Debicki is sexy and cold as Jordan, and it makes me so sad that she isn't given more screen time.
This adaptation focuses on the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy a little too much. They make TGG out to be a love story, when the main point in the book was that Daisy was a shallow woman not worth the effort Gatsby is making to obtain her heart. The many themes concerning the death of the American Dream and the moral decay of the 1920s are not elaborated upon, but I suppose that is to be expected.
So is this worth your time? I would say so. It's visually gorgeous and what is left of the story is still effective. And it may be controversial to say this, but this is miles ahead of the dull 1974 version.