Film: The Great Gatsby

Director: Baz Luhrmann
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: C+

If the words "Baz Luhrmann is directing The Great Gatsby) conjure up anything in your mind, you probably know exactly what to expect with this film. Visually enticing, often frenetic (at times pointlessly so), merrily melodramatic, and with a touch of true pathos, Luhrmann's Gatsby may be my favorite of the three adaptations of Fitzgerald's classic work that I've seen, but I don't think it captures the spare beauty and devastating prose of the novel, even when Luhrmann is literally putting Fitzgerald's words on the screen. Fitzgerald gets the over-the-top style of Jay Gatsby's parties, but he can't quite capture the sentimental core underneath.

Not that he and his actors don't try valiantly. DiCaprio is a fantastic Gatsby, and Carey Mulligan is an inspired choice as Daisy, both of them finding more depth and honesty in the characters than did Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, the Gatsby and Daisy of the 70s version. It is a testament to the actors that the scene in which Gatsby throws his shirts into the air for Daisy, prompting her to break down sobbing at the "beautiful shirts," actually works here, a feat I was sure could not really be pulled off (I mean, it's such a silly scene). DiCaprio's Gatsby gets a little darker (or is it dumber?) than I envisioned the character as he tends tirelessly to his dream of what his life should be, but for the most part I found him endearing and entrancing. Mulligan, as always, is both beautiful and fragile, a woman of the world on the outside and a lost little girl inside. It's a role she has played repeatedly--from An Education to Shame--but it's a role she plays well.

But two things get in the way of this movie for me: one of them is named Luhrmann, and the other is named Maguire. 

Luhrmann, in the first place, never knows when enough is enough. It's not enough to have the absurdity of the party, we have to have the absurdity plus whip cuts and slow motion tracking shots and Jay-Z in the background and confetti--literally confetti--EVERYWHERE. His valley of ashes is literally a valley of ashes. It's in no way subtle, and it becomes just too much; after a while that much glitter and speed gets boring. He loses track of the story in favor of 3-D and overly emotional staging, and by the time Myrtle is literally sailing over the car in her ballet of death, it gets to be all just tiring.

But Luhrmann knows how to attract young viewers, and if the reaction among my students is any indication, he has succeeded in bringing the story to life for many teenage film-goers. It is lush, and if you haven't already seen all these tricks in Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, it can be exhilarating. 

Unfortunately, whatever he accomplishes to bring life to the film is consistently sucked out by Tobey Maguire.

I don't know what it is about Maguire that rubs me the wrong way. I loved him in Cider House Rules, I liked him in the Spider-Man franchise, and I've seen him in any number of roles where he works just fine. Unfortunately, he never seems to find a handle on Nick Carraway, and I think Nick is essential to the story as both observer, judge, and participant in the insanity of the novel. Maguire plays him as mostly dull, yet somehow tortured enough by the whole thing that apparently he becomes a mad alcoholic writer; Luhrmann and his screenwriters have overlaid a little bit of Fitzgerald's own demons onto Nick, giving him a side story wherein he works out his demons by writing the Gatsby story while in a sanitarium battling his alcoholism. His therapist there is a non-entity, apparently only existing to bring him tea and fresh paper, and the whole thing is both unnecessary and pretty opposed to my reading of Nick as both a sinner and a survivor of the world of the Buchanans and the Gatsbys, those careless people who smash things up.

And maybe that's ultimately my problem with the film: I just love the book too much. I was stuck constantly judging what was left out (No Nick/Jordan romance? No Klipspringer phone call to the funeral?) and what was changed to fit Luhrmann's vision, particularly when it contrasted with my own. I appreciate the film for what it is, but I'm not particularly interested in seeing it again, whereas the novel draws me back to it year after year. I guess it's just hard to be non-judgmental about something you love so much. Gatsby knows what I'm talking about.

By all means the movie is worth seeing--especially if you haven't read the book since high school, or if you just really love visual spectacle. But if you want the real emotional heart and prose that paints itself across your mind more dramatically than all the slow-motion tracking shots in the world, then skip the movie and pick up the book. It's worth the time

Alternate Film Title: "20s Fashion Never Looked So Good"