Gemma Ward really nails the "Languid Girl" part . . .

Rating: 9/10 (10 June 2013)

. . . and while his 2013 version of THE GREAT GATSBY falls slightly short of his magical masterpiece, MOULIN ROUGE, director Baz Luhrmann has done himself proud with this adaptation, given that he was handicapped by filming this gritty New York City story entirely in Australia! Perhaps the biggest shame is that Luhrmann did not commence filming before fellow Aussie & MOULIN ROUGE star Nicole Kidman was too ancient to play the part of "Daisy Buchanan." My Nineteenth Century American Novels prof proclaimed that the source material for this movie was the "perfect" novel, and that not one sentence or word could be changed, improved, added, or left out. When I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's book for myself, I noticed a lot of it was random lists, so if my professor even read this novel, I doubt that it was recently. Otherwise, how could he have said what he did? Similarly, there are a tidal wave of details--some no doubt CGI--in Luhmann's movie, and while a few could be changed, added, or deleted with no great consequence, the whole hangs together well, especially in comparison to the Robert Redford as Gatsby version. Though it would have been nice if Luhrmann could have gone on location to Little Girl's Point in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where Capt. Cody inspired James Gatz to change his name to Jay Gatsby, it would have made his movie as expensive as that location-centered flick, THE FALL (too bad Australia has no place as singular or beautiful as Little Girl's Harbor). Hopefully, this director can make up for that glaring shortcoming by making a 3D version of THE HOLY BIBLE.