Impeccable and terrific illustration of a terrifying truth!

Rating: 7/10 (23 August 2013)

Caveat Lector: I am not used to writing reviews of movies that I watch or otherwise :).
Now that I have that out of the way, let's get back to the subject. Oh, and one other thing, I really hadn't much expectations from the Movie. But, in short, the overall experience was simply amazing! I was enthralled.
Story: This was an outstanding illustration of the inexplicable feeling of incapacitation or helplessness that even the most sumptuous, the most optimistic and ambitious people might have had to go through owing to their family backgrounds in 1920's USA and, in some backward cultures, are forced to undergo even today.
It is a terrifically illuminative story about the terrifying and morbid heartlessness of a segment of the society. Nothing but the simple fact that even the most ardent, the most earnest, the sincerest of the endeavors to make one understand that they are the only source of one's sublimely divine happiness may not necessarily be requited in the way one might want, was intensified and amplified to a point where it gave rise to a frisson of a kind of a realization or rather an insight that is both edifying and depressing at the same time.
It vehemently shakes the foundation of the unquestioned, hackneyed platitudes and predominant, vapidly hopeful incantations of the sort that "everything is fair in love and war", "true love is always reciprocated", or that "there is justice in the world" and so on.
Yet some juxtaposition might be able to make one see life from a fresh point of view which I certainly didn't and couldn't consider before.
It made me reshuffle the whole list of priorities in my life.
The cinematography was, well, remarkably flamboyant, vibrant and vivid. A real treat to the eye.
Performances of the actors, especially Maguire and DiCaprio, were extraordinary which should not be a surprise. Although the performances must be analyzed in the correct historical context, I think Mulligan could have done a little bit more than just trying to looking pretty and confounded *all the time* (a trait that I am slowly starting to loathe in her acting). Other than that, all of the acting was fabulous.
Well that's pretty much it. The bottom-line is one can watch and appreciate the true genius of the story through the movie even if you have not read the novel!