Review: The Great Gatsby

Dir: Baz Luhrmann

Written by: Baz Lurhmann & Craig Pearce (based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton.

Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby

In a world where multiplex cinemas are inundated with pre-teen birthday parties and gaggles of upstart young teenagers going to the cinema for “something to do,” a great film screening is hard to find. If you haven’t got an uncontrollable child kicking your spine into submission from behind, you’ve got some cretin in front offending your eyes with the light and sound pollution coming from their mobile. You would think that most sane people could live without looking at their phone for a couple of hours. Most, but unfortunately, not all.

I mention this because the screening of Baz Luhrmann’s new film adaptation The Great Gatsby that I attended, was impeccable. The 200-odd seater screen had all of six people in it and all were well behaved, conscientious and, most importantly, quiet. I was, for the first time in a long time, allowed full and complete concentration which, luckily, turns out to have been needed.

Luhrmann is no stranger to a glitter ball or two and the colour palates of most his previous endeavours, notably Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Romeo+Juliet (1996), were so sickeningly bright and garish that even Pixar would have had to put sunglasses on.

It was with much anticipation, yet a steady sense of trepidation then that I sat in my seat, prepared to see how old Baz would handle the glitz and unmentionable glam of 1920’s New York, and from minute one we’re in familiar territory.

The first thing I noticed was the soundtrack. For me, the film illuminated how powerful movies can be. Take a list of artists I have no real passion for, apply them carefully and thoughtfully to a film soundtrack (something which Luhrmann failed to do with Romeo+Juliet) and watch them transform into genre defying snippets of musical enlightenment. Beyoncé, Florence and her well oiled machine, Jack White, Bryan Ferry, Lana Del Ray and many others (all executively produced by Jay-z) make this film that little bit more special, providing a contemporary stab in the vein and dragging this older narrative kicking and screaming into the 21^st Century. It makes it fresh and vibrant and it certainly seems that the party scenes carry more weight with a modern soundtrack. Ignoring purists in this instance, it also gives a modern audience, unfamiliar with the story, a framework with which to start to engage with it, which can only be a good thing.

Carey Mulligan as Daisy and DiCaprio as Gatsby

From a performance perspective, there’s nothing much to worry about. Leo DiCaprio does a fantastic job at bringing Gatsby to life (not quite Oscar worthy as others have suggested, but excellent nonetheless), Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchannan shimmers with beauty throughout, Joel Edgerton made me hate the character of Tom Buchannan all over again and Jason Clarke delivers a fantastically underrated performance as garage owner George Wilson. The only disappointment for me was Isla Fisher. With Myrtle only being a smaller role, you get the sense that Fisher is hamming it up a little too much. It’s a tad too much pantomime, even for a Luhrmann picture.

Special commendation must go to Tobey Maguire however, who brought the Nick Carraway I always envisioned to the screen. Awkward at points, liberating and forthright in others, the former Spiderman star has found his niche I think in drama on this large scale and I hope he has the good sense to apply this dramatic freedom to perhaps a couple of art-house releases in the future.

Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway

Visually it is spectacular. Never one to do anything by halves, Luhrmann treats us to huge, expansive CG panoramic vistas and stunning fluid shots that fly over the city, race up and down buildings and weave through cars as we power, with supercharged engines, through the streets of the big apple.

It’s reasonable to suggest that by most people’s definition, Luhrman could, and should, be described as an Auteur in the same breath as Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, in as much as an audience can identify a Bazmark production from a mile away, but as Luhrmann has shown with his woeful adaptation of Shakespeare’s most revered (or at least most popular play), style can take over substance. In the case of The Great Gatsby however, although the palate is louder than ever, it works.

Gatsby's car outside George Wilson's Garage

 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s source material of course lingers in the background, and purists of both the novel and Jack Clayton’s 1974 adaptation will sneer at the sheer volume of chandeliers and bottles of Champagne, but there’s something special about this production, an essence that Luhrmann captures, that I think adheres more faithfully to the book than Clayton’s film ever did.

It’s a modern retelling of an old story and with a backdrop of the current financial and political misdemeanours we now face on a daily basis, a satirical account of the greed involved in social class and private wealth couldn’t be more relevant.