I am going to start this review of by saying something controversial: I read the book The Great Gatsby and if i am being totally honest... I didn't love it.
No, wait, come back! I promise I have stuff to say that you might agree with and won't strike your literary soul with horror the way my opening statement did. I just didn't realise when i first picked up the book that ultimately, The Great Gatsby is a love story. The tale of unrequited love and, well, a pretty great man who throws some pretty great parties whilst being in love. Other than love and parties not a lot really happens and even though it is a pretty short book, it dragged.
Now, onto the film. Despite not loving the book i was super excited to see the film... The excitement came around the time the words Baz Luhrmann were uttered in the same sentence as it and was even more intensified when Leonardo Dicaprio and Carey Mulligan were announced to play Gatsby and Daisy. An element of doubt set in when Tobey Maguire (seriously, what?) was cast as Nick but all in all, despite the bad reviews i was hearing, i was excited.
To start with, as i expected, the film is visually stunning. The luxury, picturesque buildings, the extravagant parties and the beautiful 1920s fashion... Aesthetically i was in love. The beauty of the scenes combined with Luhrmann's trademark directing technique made it a joy to look at and i think even if i hated everything else about it, the pure beauty of the film would have been enough to make me enjoy it at least a little bit. Luhrmann is one of my favourite directors and this is because i love the fast-paced, carnivalesque nature of his films. I think any other director even thinking about making Gatsby into a film is, quite frankly, unacceptable. If anybody was going to bring those fantastical parties to life it was Baz and he delivered 110%.
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| Carey Mulligan is beautiful as Daisy |
Onto the casting. Carey Mulligan has been a firm favourite of mine since i saw her in An Education four years ago. She is simply beautiful and such an elegant, graceful woman in every role i have seen her in and she floated into Daisy's shoes in a similarly elegant manner and with such amazing beauty that shone through the screen. However, in the book i found Daisy to be quite a one-dimensional character. I had absolutely no feeling or emotion towards her and i am sad to say that this translates into the film as well. I don't think it is by any means a reflection of Mulligan or Luhrmann; they did everything right but, for me, Daisy just isn't a character i can bring myself to care about. There just isn't enough there for me to relate to as she doesn't really have a lot of dialogue and we are told very little about her life, aside from her relationship with Gatsby. I think Daisy's transparant character is more a reflection of the expecations of women at the time of Fitzgerald's writing above anything else. Saying this, the scene where Daisy is preparing to marry and the string of pearls breaks as she is screaming did bring a lump to my throat when watching. Carey Mulligan might not have been able to breathe life into a lifeless character but everything that she did do was beautifully acted and for that, i can not fault her.
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| Tobey Maguire's comical facial expressions introduced us all to a new Nick Carraway |
Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway... Where to start? I can't even begin to tell you how shocked i was when Maguire was announced to play the character who ultimately carries the novel. The story may be about Gatsby but in every sense of the word it is Nick who is the protagonist so casting somebody who had pretty much disappeared since his last big film almost a decade ago did not seem a wise choice for me. Tobey Maguire is Spiderman. To me and to many other people this is all he is known as... Could he really carry the film adaptation of one of the biggest literary classics to exist? As soon as the film started, i was wary. He was definitely not how i imagined Nick to be when reading the book, he was just too awkward - too much of a wallflower, i know Nick is the one who observes the whole story but he doesn't just blend into the background the way that Maguire did. As well as this new awkward personality that Maguire introduced to Nick, it was distracting that he seems to only be able to do facial expressions that border on comical, it is difficult to take him seriously. His facial reactions and the way he responds to other characters almost seemed like a caricature but i have to say, after about half an hour this grew on me. The small essence of slapstick comedy that Tobey Maguire embossed into every facial expression eventually worked for me and i will be completely honest and say that they only worked because of Baz Luhrmann's directing technique. The whole film was very bizarre, very carnivalesque, very caricature and once the parties and the fast-paced nature of these scenes got into the swing of it Maguire's silly face blended in naturally with the rest of the carry-on around him after initally sticking out like a sore thumb. Similarly to Luhrmann's other great films like Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, a lot of the shots were sudden close-ups of the character's faces and although Maguire definitely does not portray the Nick Carraway in the book, which i can see would annoy fans, he does portray an acceptable and watchable Nick Carraway. I did need time to get used to him but in hindsight i think he was a good, not great, choice.
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| Leonardo Dicaprio: A truly great Gatsby |
Oh Gatsby... As with most people my age i have been a huge fan of Leonardo Dicaprio for as long as i can remember, he was one of my first 'favourite actors' having watched The Basketball Diaries at a young age and even then i remember thinking how astounding he was at acting - my love of him is not just down to his sexy good looks. Therefore i could not have chosen anybody else to play the iconic literary character of Jay Gatsby. He did say 'Old Sport' a hell of a lot but all in all he made a pretty great Gatsby
(i didn't even mean to make that lame little pun there but i am leaving it in because it's true) He has the charisma, the depth, the look of Gatsby. He was so close to how i pictured him to be when reading the book and i actually connected with film Gatsby a LOT more than i did with book Gatsby. Something about the sad, painful look in his eyes and the hidden anguish he portrayed so well. In the book i was somewhat unaffected by the ending but in the film i was edging towards tears. It just broke my heart to see Gatsby fall apart the way that he does and personally i truly believe that Dicaprio brought Gatsby to life in ways that the book could not. My ultimate favourite scene in the film is when Gatsby is throwing all of his shirts over the stairs; he just looks so happy, so carefree - Dicaprio's entire face transforms, he had the youthful, fresh, innocent look that he did in his early days. It looked like a genuine transition of emotion, not just your bog-standard actor putting across that emotion, you can see that Dicaprio really did feel it and it is little things like that that make the film and fully engross you into the storyline and lives of the characters.
On top of this, there are many other pro-points to the film: The on-screen chemistry between Leonardo Dicaprio and Carey Mulligan was out of this world. They really looked like they were in love with eachother and the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby was enchanting, even if Daisy as a character was not. The supporting cast was amazing and i couldn't fault anything about any of them and very little of the main narrative was changed in the transition from book to film, which is a rare feat nowadays and must have made fans of the book pretty happy. There genuinely were a whole lot of plus points to this movie but the biggest negative was that i found it around about half an hour too long. There was a section in the middle where it all just seemed to drag and the audience had already understood the pain and anguish at unrequited love but Luhrmann seemed keen to reinforce that as much as possible... And this was too many times for my liking. As i said, the book is pretty short and i had already wondered how they would make it into a feature length film at all, let alone a two and a half hour one. However, similarly to Les Miserables, the prolonged middle section of the film was more than made up for by the incredible ending. The last fifteen minutes had me hooked and the very, very last scene - though really predictable - sent shivers down my spine.
As i wasn't a huge fan of the book i will actually congratulate The Great Gatsby for, in my opinion, being a film that is actually slightly better than the book. Other than cutting down some of that middle section i couldn't think of anything more they could have done in order to improve it. And my love for Baz Luhrmann may be slightly responsible for this but i like to think it is a film that will be enjoyed by most!
All in all i award The Great Gatsby with
★★★★☆
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Love,
