Cinematic Hyperbole a Matter of Taste

Rating: 5/10 (9 July 2013)

There is a key scene in The Great Gatsby, your reaction to which will probably determine whether you love it or not.
For the first 30 minutes the eponymous Jay Gatsby is a missing enigma. Teasingly and tauntingly you see him fleetingly in long shot through a far distant window; there are a few close ups of his right pinkie sporting an out-sized signet ring; he is gossiped about, alluded to and referred to, at ever more frequent intervals so that, just like the shark in the original Jaws, his presence becomes greater and more intense by the very fact of his absence from screen.
And then it happens. We gate crash one of Jay Gatsby's regular opulent parties. The grounds in West Egg are overtaken by the whole of New York society, clearly aware that mass ostentation is the only rule of attendance. The camera draws us upon him. As Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue builds and bursts in its sublime crescendo, The Great Gatsby is suddenly there before us, smiling inscrutably, raising his cocktail glass in salute as the night sky behind him is suddenly aflame with the greatest firework display ever seen outside of China.
If you sit in your chair, mouth agape, goose bumps covering your whole being, silently lip-syncing 'WOW!!!!' you will undoubtedly love the whole film. If, on the other hand, you consider this cinematic hyperbole to be, well, perhaps just a teensy-weensy bit over the top then this may not make your Film of the Year shortlist.
For this scene neatly encapsulates Baz Luhrmann's whole take on this enterprise. The film is, to all intents, a cartoon. Live action maybe but a cartoon nonetheless. Gatsby's palatial mansion with its fairy tale turrets and fountains is straight out of a 1940s Disney animation; New York and its hinterland of The Valley of Ashes look more like Batman's Gotham City and even the flashback scenes to World War One's Western Front appear to have been lifted from the 1980s comedy satire, Blackadder Goes Forth. The film gains nothing from being in 3D and having seen it twice I preferred the 2D version, although a few shots were a little askew betraying its dual format.
There is not a shred of subtlety or nuance to be found in the entire 143 minutes. That is not Mr Luhrmann's style. Indeed, I imagine The Great Baz waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night in a momentary fear that someone, somewhere might just be able to draw their own conclusion from a scene he believed he had nailed down to be totally beyond interpretation. It is his film and you will see it his way or not at all.
Leonardo DiCaprio pretty much nails Jay Gatsby; it's the sort of role in which he excels, for Dicaprio always looks like a movie star – a disadvantage when you try to play mundane but perfect for larger than life characters. The usually excellent Carey Mulligan however, whose haunting performance in Shame I rate as the best I saw all last year, fails to fire as Daisy. It's difficult to be convinced that she could motivate the intense love rivalry between Gatsby and Tom, played as a single note with a never ending scowl by Joel Edgerton. Tobey Maguire has the unenviable task of having to deliver large chunks of the film in narrative – a device which suggests Mr Luhrmann was unsure how best to drive the story.
The soundtrack is deliberately anachronistic, modern day hip hop preferred to jazz. Quite what this is supposed to achieve is beyond me. F. Scott Fitzgerald himself coined the phrase, The Jazz Age, and the film's setting is crying out for a superior jazz score.
The film never fails to fill the entire screen. It is a big film. It will not bore you. You may love it. You may not.