Whenever a movie includes a superlative in its title, it
always sets up the inevitable puns for reviewers (both casual and formal) to
shout, and after a while it gets rather tedious. But when it comes to the subject of Baz
Luhrmann’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, to you, sir, I say, “Not so great, old sport.”
A relatively close adaptation of Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby follows Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he recounts his life as a bond salesman in the New York of the Roaring Twenties. After procuring an invitation to the most lavish party in town – which just happens to be right next door – Nick meets the owner of the house, the ever-optimistic Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). As Nick and Gatsby become friends, Gatsby makes an unusual request – he wants to meet with Nick’s married cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan).
The great American novel, a story of enduring love, required reading for high schoolers the world over – all accurate descriptors for The Great Gatsby. And it’s not that Luhrmann’s adaptation is absolute rubbish. It’s just far from great, much less than such a work of literature deserves. Luhrmann’s Gatsby is not without its virtues, but its weak points outshine the good ones such that I suspect that even Luhrmann devotees might be disappointed.
First, the good news. DiCaprio and Mulligan are exemplary as Gatsby and Daisy, first-rate approximations of the characters they embody. It’s difficult to imagine an actor whose own star power better personifies that of Jay Gatsby, the never-say-die millionaire whose optimism is matched only by his opulence. (Sidebar: when is DiCaprio getting that Oscar? He consistently turns in solid work, and while I don’t think he’ll land one here I do think he’s long overdue.) And Mulligan is solid as the emotionally vapid Daisy, languid in all the right places but without rendering Gatsby’s affection inexplicable. We too might love Daisy if we’d known her that long ago. Finally, there’s Maguire, who does exactly what the novel asked of Nick – he observes, he mediates, he explicates.
And therein lies the problem. The film is too faithful an adaptation in this regard, situating Nick as the main character through whom the entire movie is filtered. But that technique doesn’t work for a film, because we don’t need a character to explain what we’re meant to see; we can just see it. Worse, there are moments where Nick narrates what he sees while the camera focuses only on him; in a cinematic medium, this is the equivalent of someone telling you about their summer vacation. Because Luhrmann is known for such a highly stylized approach to visuals, it’s quite a surprise that he does this so frequently; we know he knows better, but why won’t he let us see what’s going on? (This is all to say nothing of the odd framing device placed over the film that seems to conflate Nick with Fitzgerald, to varying degrees of confusion.)
As for the visuals, Luhrmann does a decent job with the big parties, lavish set pieces that show off the decadence of the Jazz Age. It’s classic Luhrmann, velvet vomit to excess and glittery garland as far as the eye can see (and it looks grand in 3D, to boot). I had initial apprehensions about the use of contemporary music, but I didn’t mind it in the feature film itself; the effect seems to be simulate the shocking avant-garde nature of the music that must have been played at Gatsby’s parties, and it seems comparable to Deadwood’s use of modern profanity in lieu of historically accurate vulgarities.
But all told, I came away more than just a bit disappointed, surprised at how restrained the movie was in some points (especially for a director like Luhrmann), pleasantly satisfied with the performances, but more-than-mildly irritated with the decision to foreground such a passive observer like Nick. Build me a movie not around his tepid narration but around the dynamic between Gatsby and Daisy, and I’ll be ready to call that Gatsby “great.”
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