Note: I have posted this review over at wordpress here as well. I'm moving the blog over there so check there for new posts and updates.
When you talk about the Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby, to people, they usually have one of two reactions: they call it a masterpiece or a boring work of melodramatic crap. There seems to be only extremes when it comes to The Great Gatsby, and it seems almost fitting that the newest movie adaptation has been so divisive with most people coming down on the love it or hate it side, and seeing Baz Luhrman's style as either invigorating or obnoxious. Funny enough, watching the film, for me, was one of the more conflicting experiences I've had in a movie theatre.
This adaptation wastes no time in letting you know that nuance and subtlety are only distractions, and that this film is going to be right in your face about things from the start (after all this is a Baz Luhrman film), and at times this choice does seem to work. Gatsby's parties are entertaining and beautiful to watch, but they ultimately fail to deliver on the grotesque qualities that Carraway wrestles with throughout the book. I think that is one of the bigger problems with the movie which is that Luhrman may fit stylistically in ways, but was never the right choice to tackle the books themes. It is clear that Luhrman knows this as well.
Having co-written the screenplay, it's pretty evident that Luhrman has no intentions of tackling the themes that make the book so universally known, and what it does start to tackle it only starts to scratch the surface of. The film tries to make up for this at times by utilizing the hitting you-over-the-head technique to imagery. There are around 7 shots of just Dr. T.J. Eckleburg's eyes, more than one of which, always has someone talking about "God" over it. It's an important image in the book, but it would have been better if we had seen more shots of it in the background where it is always there, but just not at the foreground all the time.
This leads to another very important problem in the film which is that it reads the book to the audience. I'm not just talking voice over, I'm talking text on screen with Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) reading from the book. You see, Nick Carraway is writing the book throughout the movie. What this allowed Luhrman to do is have Carraway read from the book he is writing in order to read to the audience some of the great language used in the book. Unfortunately, he pairs this with having text scroll across shots of the night sky and beautiful set pieces so often that the movie starts too resemble a teenage girls tumblr page. It is infinitely distracting and does not do what a movie is supposed to do.
The book has already done it's job, it used language very well to translate images to the reader and provide context through which those images should be read, when you are making a film you should not rely on the book's text that much in order to make the images in the movie clear. The film's job is to show not tell. That's actually the book's job too and it already succeeded. Show us the famous images in the context of their surroundings and show us what they mean through what happens in the film. Do not show us an image and then read to us what it means. It comes across as an interactive audiobook. If I wanted an audiobook of Tobey Maguire reading The Great Gatsby...well, I don't know who would want that.
When Tobey Maguire was announced as Nick Carraway, there was a collective groan across the internet (including myself) and as I watched The Great Gatsby, the groan was coming back. He's just not any good here. The Nick Carraway from the book was conflicted about what was going on and his relationship with Jordan Baker was representative of this. Jordan's allure represents the vivaciousness and lavishness of the parties, but her belittling of other people is representative of the grotesqueness that Nick is resistant to. Unknown Elizabeth Debicki's portrayal of Jordan handles the first part very well but isn't given ample opportunity to even stroke the second (Which is unfortunate because I think she really could have.). Nick isn't supposed to like any of these people. Gatsby is the one person who gets his respect because he is above it all in Nick's eyes. He threw the parties as a facade to attract the woman he loved. A noble goal in Nick's eyes. Maguire's portrayal of Nick Carraway lacks any nuance and is just a wide-eyed twenty something that dives into the 1920s rich lifestyle and is only repulsed by it at the end of the film. By that time it feels like such a dramatic character turn because we're not given any lead up. This is the scripts fault as much as Maguire's.
Not all the acting is bad though, Leonardo Dicaprio is a pretty great Gatsby. He's able to be suave and endearing as well as dark and hidden, however his emotions often range from being hopelessly in love to overly angry too often that reminded me too much of his role in Django Unchained. Carey Mulligan pulls off a very convincing Daisy, but it too often feels like she wasn't given enough material to work with. The real stand out here is Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan. Edgerton really shines often delivering snide lines under his breath and belching out lines that really command the screen. Edgerton is able to exude power, which is what he needed to do. He is equally convincing when he is telling Daisy that he really does love her, that you start to understand Tom more than really any other character. Your eyes are on him and rarely anyone else when he is on screen. Now if we could just get a spinoff movie about him.
The use of music in the film is pretty distracting but not as distracting as I had expected. The soundtrack produced by Jay-Z is more often understated then not, but when it isn't, it is incredibly distracting. The anachronistic nature of the soundtrack is the biggest problem. It just does not fit. It seemed like Luhrman and Jay-Z wanted to draw a comparison between 1920s party life and modern club life. Which seems like an ironic goal for Jay-Z seeing how this would then condemn his music and the music on the soundtrack as hollow and superficial. However, the music isn't used enough to make this comparison work in any way, and it is used too much to not be distracted by it. What the music ultimately seems to be there to do is attract a younger audience. When combined with Baz Luhrman's style, the music makes the film look more like a badly directed music video than anything else. Which apparently has done its job and won a younger audience.
The film is also marked by incredibly terrible ADR. Most notably when Nick is at Daisy's house for the first time, there are a couple times when either Nick or Daisy are talking and no one's lips are moving. Another notable time is when Nick and Gatsby are in the yellow sports car driving. Up close their lips match but the cuts to the car, you can see lips moving when no one is talking and lips not moving when someone is. It's so obvious and not hidden well that I was half expecting a boom mic to fall into frame.
What The Great Gatsby offers us is a very hollow and superficial film. Something that in my opinion marks every Baz Luhrman film. Had it been on purpose, Luhrman could have used to that to make a comparison between the 20s lifestyle and his own film style. Unfortunately, Luhrman is unwilling to deprecate himself to achieve that. Instead we get a film that often tries to reach for depth but can't, then really stops trying, then tries again really hard towards the end (and almost succeeds), and then just quits for the last 20 minutes. It's like 85% of the kids who start taking Karate lessons (including myself). Ultimately the film falls flat and is unable to conjure any emotion out of the audience for its characters. Something that is both expected from Baz Luhrman and disappointing because the book already does that well enough.
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