By Ethan Epstein
Rating: 2/5 Stars
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Genre: Drama
Release Date: May 10, 2013
Do you remember watching “Romeo and Juliet” in 9th grade? You know, the terribly cheesy modern interpretation that nearly ruined the classic love story? Well, “The Great Gatsby,” the latest attempt at cinematizing the clasical novel, is no different, and not just because it shares the same director and leading male.
“The Great Gatsby” tells the story of would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he heads for New York City in the jazzy 1920s. Nick ends up living next door to a mysterious millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), known for throwing epic parties. He is drawn into the lives of the super rich, experiencing doomed love and extreme tragedy.
Talking nonstop and donning 20s inspired outfits, many people were extremely excited about the movie’s release, but I was skeptical from the beginning. I knew that movies never live up to their written counterparts and I didn’t want to see another classic destroyed by the silver screen.
Well, lo and behold I was right. This movie of Luhrmann’s may be even tackier than his “Romeo + Juliet”; the unnecessary 3D didn’t do anything except raise the price of a ticket.
Nothing about the movie told me that Luhrmann actually cared about the details that he needed to in order to pull off this project. Everything, including the modern background music (I can’t imagine that they danced to hip hop at that time), told the audience that this was made in 2013; there was no illusion of the audience being transported to the 1920s.
Luhrmann tried so hard to make a visually intriguing movie that he lost sight of the twists and turns of the plot. Don’t get me wrong, the visuals are incredible, but there was nothing to back them up.
None of the major themes that are so integral in the book, such as the decline of the American dream or the shallowness of our money-driven society, shine through in the movie because there was no foundation on which to lay them; the movie was all deception.
While the computer-generated image of New York (the movie was actually filmed in Australia) was incredibly beautiful, something felt phony. Having been to New York quite a few times, I just felt that it was so fake — like everything else in the movie.
All in all, this movie lacked the intriguing depth that the book had, and wrongly tried to make up for it with flashy sets, costumes, and other visuals. I can imagine that F. Scott Fitzgerald is turning in his grave.
Movie critic Willie Waffle put it nicely; “The Great Gatsby is a visual assault, and Luhrmann should be jailed for 5 – 10 years in the slammer for battery of our eyes and theft of our ticket money.”
Movie Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARN6agiW7o
