The Great Gatsby

So there I was, a little too sick and a little too black (running a bit late) to go see DJ Shadow on a Thursday night. So I decided that I couldn’t be completely lame and that I may as well go see the new Leo flick, The Great Gatsby. But I’m a straight guy as well, so when I ran into my buddy in the hallway and he asked what I was about to go do, I had to lie. “Uh, just a quick run to the drug store.” Apparently I thought I was living in the 20’s like Jay Gatsby; the drug store???

Well I wasn’t the only one because as with most opening night shows there were clowns dressed up for the occasion. Some guy walked in sporting a tux complete with a top hat and cane. Hopefully he went all out and took his date for some Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos beforehand. But with Baz Luhrmann you should expect the full gambit of wackiness. Don’t get me wrong, he was considered a bit of a visionary when he combined his over stylized filming approach with a cool and different take on the use of soundtracks in films with Romeo and Juliet. Radiohead, Garbage, The Cardigans, and an awesome cover of Prince’s When Doves Cry had you bopping your head while trying to figure what the hell people were saying on screen. And then he reached his peak with every girl’s wet dream with Moulin Rouge. But after a while, these films seemed a bit dated and he ultimately went over the top with the long and boring Australia.

So naturally he tries to right the ship by taking on one of the hardest books in history to adapt to the screen in The Great Gatsby. But there was hope that this could be a return to form when you saw the excellent cast which included Leo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, and even Jay Z doing the soundtrack. You notice how I left off Tobey Maguire? He just happened to get the coveted Nick Carraway role but the question is how? What has he been excellent in? He always plays the same “Aww Shucks” character who when tries to look angry, you just end up laughing at him. He doesn’t have any range at all as an actor and he doesn’t bring any sense of cool to the big screen like his counterpart Leo or even a young Corey Feldman. No I can’t let go of those days. We all laughed when in Entourage they offered Vince the role of Carraway but never did we see the real life Vince getting said role.

Well aside from Maguire being his usual average self, the movie itself isn’t that bad. You just have to get through the first 30-40 minutes of it. This is where Baz drops the majority of his 127 million dollar budget, supposedly a ton of that on costumes. He always feels the need to have extravagant galas and dance numbers in his movies and he combines that with his now distracting filming style where he cannot focus on one person or thing for longer than two seconds before zooming in or out to something. And Jay Z’s songs in this marathon of a movie neither enhance or take you out of the scenes; they are just kind of there. It’s weird how these two weren’t able to make this work. But once you get past this, he and the movie settles down a bit and the love story starts to kick in.

If you have never read the book, the story is about the mysterious Jay Gatsby who befriends his neighbor Nick Carraway. He has returned from the war and rises rather quickly to filthy rich status with no one really knowing how or really knowing much about him. Across the way lives Carraway’s cousin Daisy (Mulligan) who is married to the cheating and self involved Tom who is played wonderfully by Joel Edgerton. I would say it was an Oscar worthy performance but how hard is it to play a narcissistic trust fund baby who is an asshole? 

Anyway, Gatsby is trying to reunite with his long lost love Daisy and this is where Baz’s talent is put on display. There are only two scenes that you take away from this film and one of them is when Gatsby sees Daisy for the first time. This is the most beautiful I have ever seen Mulligan on screen and you believe that Leo is so nervous that his heart actually stops. From this moment on, it becomes a decent film and you get into it.

The only issue is that it’s just a decent film and not great or even really good one like it could have been. I think it’s a combination of the length of the movie and the difficulty of trying to translate the book’s material to the big screen. Leo actually carries this film, especially when he finally loses it in a scene towards the end. Mulligan and Edgerton both put in memorable performances as well. Overall I just think the movie falls a bit flat and it will become of those conversation topics in about 5 years where you and your friends say “Oh yeah, they did make a Gatsby movie”. And based off of that I give it a rating of kind of WEAK.