A bit on the Surreal/freakish side

Rating: 6/10 (29 May 2013)

My wife and I both just saw The Great Gastby - and we both were not all that impressed with it, even though she is a Leonardo DiCaprio fan.
SPOILER ALERT - Mild spoiler anyway The problem with the film is that while it is done as a period piece, and there are some wonderful sets, the film has an almost surreal quality about it. To be fair, it has been a long time since I read The Great Gatsby, so I cannot comment on how well the movie follows the original book. I am not sure if the book was intended as a surreal picture of the Roaring 20's or not. Nonetheless, the surreal quality of the film kills a lot of the believability/buy-in factor for the audience.
Also, as much as I like Mr. DeCaprio( and the film has gone through about 45 minutes of its length before he shows up, I felt I was once again watching either J. Edgar or The Aviator. It is almost as if Mr. DiCaprio is now pigeon holed into a particular role type - strong yet misfit individuals. Certainly this would mirror his role in Titanic.
Other than the role of Carroway, played by Tobey Maguire and really serves as the movie's main character since it is told through his eyes, the rest of the actors are unknown to US audiences. This is not altogether bad - certainly the actress playing Daisy, Carey Mulligan, did a fine job in her role. The thing is, the characters are meant to be shallow/two-dimensional, so really the performances don't need to be particularly deep or emotional.
So, really, the film doesn't get the audience to feel comfortable in its world because of the surreal quality. To me anyway, this kills a lot of the enjoyment aspect of it - it is almost as if the movie had a fairy tale/morality quality about it. Again, I am not sure if it was the intention of Fitzgerald's book to be this way - but it didn't play well to me, and hence my low rating of it.