The Great Gatsby

Watching “The Great Gatsby” feels like having completed 3 years of college and now attending the graduation ceremony. It is an adaptation of a piece of classic text (a la “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet”), threw in with a lot of updated pop anthems suited for the movie setting (a la “Moulin Rouge”) and added an epic love story happened in an alien social world for the protagonist (a la “Australia”). It is what you can expect from Baz Luhrmann. And it is exactly what you get.

First of all, for all the classic purists out there, there is a warning here – if you are looking for a conventional adaptation of this famous F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, avoid the cinema at all cost because this is a Baz Luhrmann production. Seriously, if you want to go to a Baz Luhrmann movie, you have to expect unconventional stuff and sometimes ideas and scenes that came out of nowhere. It is not just about sitting around in nice furniture talking about life, or in “The Great Gatsby” case, the corruption of life.

The production, shot in Sydney brought us all the way back to Fitzgerald’s 1920s New York life. Our protagonist Nick arrived in New York to be a bond salesman hoping to make a fortune in the booming market. Surrounding him are people who are all much much well off than he is and thus starts a summer of parties, obsessions and renegade love. The premise of the novel suits perfectly to Baz’s directing and production style. So it is not a surprise that he has eyes on this project. He had reconstructed Fitzgerald’s world with meticulous attention and the hard work can be seen on screen. The lavish lifestyles of upper class New Yorkers and their “good for nothing” way of life were recreated perfectly under Baz’s camera. However, somehow I did not feel connected as I used to before. The feeling of the movie for me is I was presented with a hamper full of good and some even great stuff, but I did not feel anything about the hamper or the person who gave it to me. This is the first time I felt this way with a Baz Luhrmann film.

The cast with Toby Mcguire, Leonardo di Caprio, Carey Mulligan etc delivered a great performance. However, it did take me some time to warm myself up to the characters. This is not because the story was narrated back by Toby’s Nick in the cold mid-west. I just somehow did not feel connected to the characters I used to with other Baz films. Nonetheless, as things “heated up” in the story, I did start to care about the characters. Leonarodo di Caprio did a great job as Gatsby. He was exactly how I imagined when I first read the book and I just thought: “wow, this is Gatsby”. I know there were critics about di Caprio’s age’s suitability for the role but in my opinion, he delivered a great performance as the obsessively in love and positive Gatsby who has a dodgy background. Carey Mulligan as Daisy is kind of offbeat for me. I did not feel that fatally attractive power and personality in her at all. Having said that, her performance in the revelation scene was handled perfectly. Toby’s Nick though had the most screen time came across to me as pretty flat but then I do not think that he stumbled because he was facing off with a lot of more “out there” characters. In a world full of eccentric characters, Toby managed to stand firm on his grounds and made it through with his character. Eizabeth Debicki was quite outstanding as the cynical and sharp tongued Jordon although she, unlike in the novel, did not have a storyline with Toby’s Nick anymore as the focus in the film is entirely on the triangle relationship among Gatsby, Daisy and Tom. Joel Edgerton as Tom was fit for purpose but personally I do feel Joel has been type cast for similar roles too many times in recent years that he could just wear them on with different outfits and deliver a solid performance. On top of that as usual Baz managed to rope in a lot of Who’s Who in the Australian acting industry in smaller roles, which was quite fun to watch.

“The Great Gatsby” came with a great soundtrack. Apart from updated tunes of some well known pop anthems, there were some original scores composed for the movie that are equally good and fit for purpose. The abundant use of Gershwin’s  “Rhapsody in Blue” has reconfirmed that this is the theme of New York. Catherine Martin’s wardrobe is as usual stunning and really shows off the figures of the cast.

“The Great Gatsby” is a true complete package of entertainment with an appropriate length. The question here is why am I not “moved” or “connected” to the movie at all? I thought maybe the setting? Not so because “Romeo+Juliet” is even more fictional than Gatsby. I kept on searching for the answer and finally I was thinking, would it be because Baz was trying very hard to show to the world that he still is a key player (after the “Australia” saga) in the industry that he had distanced himself from the audience? Or is it because of so he put in too much of everything and the film became “a fantastical banquet just too many strange dishes”?

I would not go hard on Baz Luhrmann on “The Great Gatsby” because it is an entertainment piece of work and it serves its purpose. But I am concerned that as a person who has been following his movies, and really appreciates what he tried to offer in the past, successfully or not, if I could not get myself connected to this production, what lies ahead? I did not have the urge to go see it again, or tell people that it is a must see movie because of A, B and C. I just felt, “Ok cool I have seen it. It is not bad, entertaining to a certain extent. That’s all…” I think the danger of this adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” lies much further down than the hidden gangster of Gatsby’s New York.