Ah, the troubles of having new money when the blue bloods with old money laugh at you from across the water. This is the world of Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). Having never read the book I was still drawn to the film by director Baz Luhrmann's great filmography. But unfortunately that ends here for me, though to be honest the last film I saw of his is over a decade old (Moulin Rouge), having never seen 2008's Australia.
Being completely in the dark about the plot, I wondered at first if Gatsby was going to be a Tyler Durden type character. But The Great Gatsby is really just a lazy mystery about who Gatsby is and where his money comes from, and the answers aren't all that interesting.
Gatsby opens in black and white with grainy titles that feel right out of the roaring twenties Of course, it all turns to color almost immediately and for the first ten minutes we're whisked into the beginning of Nick Carraway (Toby Maguire)'s crazy summer in New York with the rich and famous. Nick is our narrator throughout, and the lyrical language made me want to read the book even more, even though the film didn't wow me at all.
"None of us contributed anything new."
Neither the characters nor the narrative is worth the journey. I was hoping Baz Luhrmann's talents would elevate the story, but I feel this quiet drama was too quiet even for him to save. And while I find these super rich people with no substance interesting, I hope to find them better explored in the pages than they were on screen.
"All the bright precious things fade so fast, and they don't come back."
I had heard a lot about the party scenes and that this was where Baz Luhrmann was really showing off his stuff, but the first party we get to isn't classy at all. It's a sketchy apartment affair where everyone gets ugly drunk. It's a good contrast to Gatsby's shindigs later on, but even those are more interesting the morning after, as the staff begins cleaning everything up. Perhaps I'm just a more of a downstairs guy, as the upstairs dramas hold little interest for me.
"Anything can happen when you cross the Queensboro bridge, even Gatsby."
I did really enjoy the first scene in the yellow car, as Gatsby and Nick are driving into New York City, and Gatsby is basically giving his resume to Nick to prove himself. He even goes so far as to show him photos and a war medal. Gatsby says, "I didn't want you to think I was some nobody." This resume is as close as we get to any of the characters. None of them has an ounce of substance beyond their credentials. I get what the point is, but its hard to enjoy spending time with a character who has nothing to them below the surface. Everyone is superficial and flat. That's certainly part of what the movie is about, but that doesn't mean it's fun to watch.
"I've had enough of everyone."
I was drawn more to the world in between Gatsby's home and New York City. It's this hard scrabble mining town that the rich drive through on their way to the city. Perhaps it's because I could more identify with the stories there, or perhaps I was looking to find a character I could identify with. But maybe I just wanted to get away from everyone. I did really enjoy that bizarre billboard with glasses. It gave character to the location, something we didn't get anywhere else.
"I'm pretty cynical about everything."
For me, the CGI felt poorly done. We live in a world where the USS Enterprise can come to life on screen and feel like a real place. But there are scenes here where Gatsby looks like he's standing in front of a green screen, which of course, he is. So either the CGI was sub par, or it was done this way on purpose, and I've got to side with the former.
I did like the use of titles. Luhrmann did a similar thing in Romeo + Juliet to draw attention to the lines and phrases of dialogue, and it works well here too, there's just not enough of it.
Since it's a classic, I must assume the themes addressed on screen are done better in the book. But here I am left with a slow film, despicable characters, and a sense of style that felt every bit as shallow as the characters themselves.
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