The OK Gatsby

Rating: 7/10 (30 May 2013)

If you've never read the novel, you'll have a much better chance of liking this film. That's because the film basically focuses on the Gatsby-Daisy love affair and avoids going too deeply into any philosophical/psychological areas that the novel tries to bring to light. Yes, it is a lavish production that would continue to be so even if the 3D glasses were eliminated, which they should have been. Before seeing the film, I had doubts about the sound track which included compositions by Jay Z. Oddly enough, the sound track worked and was not distracting. However, I wonder why director, Baz Luhrmann, decided to add modern music to a film obsessed with recreating the atmosphere of the 1920s. Perhaps financial reasons were behind it, or maybe he just wanted to lure in the younger audience.
The acting was good enough. DiCaprio played a kind of Gatsby but failed to bring out that sense of melancholy and longing that you find in most Fitzgerald characters. His Gatsby was interesting if lacking in depth. I had trouble with Carey Mulligan as Daisy. She was a little too "girl next doorish" to make us believe that she was Gatsby's obsession. She simply lacked the psychotic proclivities that the novel's Daisy possesses and which underpin the somewhat confusing psychological attraction between the two main characters. Nick (Tobey Maguire) was more simple-minded than in the novel.
But the people I saw the movie with, and who were not familiar with the novel, thought the movie was quite good. I can see their point and almost wish I hadn't read the novel a number of times. So I would recommend this movie for those not familiar with the novel and would warn those who know the novel about coming away from it with a sense of being unfulfilled.