The great American novel adapted into a great American mess...

Rating: 2/10 (28 June 2013)

'The Great Gatsby' lacks any subtly whatsoever. Baz Luhrmann has turned Fitzgerald's masterpiece into a showy cartoon with extravagance but no taste. One wonders if Luhrmann even began to skim across the surface of what Fitzgerald's masterwork was even about. Luhrmann's film is all about spectacle and superficiality, Fitzgerald's novel blatantly attacks such concepts in search of deeper significance.
This film is a cartoon. That's all there is to it. Everything is so tremendously fake from the decor to the acting. I am of the opinion that 'Gatsby' is a work that cannot be successfully translated to the film without losing it's impact. The joy of Fitzgerald's novel is it's beautiful prose and symbolic poetry which a filmmaker like Luhrmann is not interested in. Luhrmann is in love with the exciting visuals of the roaring twenties. Fitzgerald is often considered the epitome of the roaring twenties but what is often forgotten is that 'Gatsby' does not celebrate such a lifestyle. It is a story about facades and the facade of the roaring twenties that Luhrmann is so interested in hides pain and insecurity. The film moves at a break neck pace too and Fitzgerald's words are brushed over before one has a chance to comprehend them. Luhrmann does however offer us plenty of time to absorb long drawn out party sequences which are loud but are never visually interesting or well choreographed.
The actors buy into Luhrmann's vision to a tee. They are all very fake and superficial. I felt as if I were watching a Saturday Night Live episode parodying Gatsby. Every member of the main cast excluding DiCaprio gives a performance in the vein of some stock view of what these times and ideas represented. The actresses I feel are particularly bad as they seem to overplay the sexuality of these characters. All the actors throw everything out and there is nothing beneath the surface of any of these performances. They are just really playing flapper dress up. If Isla Fisher were playing a larger role than Myrtle Wilson than I would say her performance is bad enough to ruin her career.
DiCaprio is good as Gatsby and saves the film from a bomb rating. He seems to be the only one to explore the nuances of his character. Luhrmann's only exploration of Fitzgerald's gift for metaphor and allegory is the obvious notion of the 'green light'. DiCaprio tries his hardest to give it weight and is wonderfully awkward and shy around Daisy. Any power this theme and character would have is ruined by how blatantly Luhrmann robs the metaphor of any mystery by his over the top sweeping shots of the distance between the two eggs.
Tobey Maguire is too much of a boy to play Nick Carraway but to be fair Luhrmann's vision of the character is deeply flawed. Luhrmann already hinders the character by building a stupid dramatic conceit in having him tell Gatsby's tale from a mental institution. The experience of the story is a somber character building one and Carraway is supposed to become aware of the world through it. Luhrmann's choice really ruins the whole story as it suggests that Carraway's loss of innocence and faith in the world is unique. One of the joys of Gatsby is it's cynical view of the world and how Gatsby's hope is supposed to mean something profound in a world that crushes such ideas.
The film will no doubt bring 'Gatsby' to a new audience but I fear that it is an audience that will not understand it's importance and lose it's self in Luhrmann's silly music video parties instead of Fitzgerald's epic. If Luhrmann's film inspires someone to pick up Fitzgerald's novel than I suppose it has some worth but otherwise this is a waste of celluloid.