Fortunately, I decided to read the book first before I watched Baz Lurhmanns recent screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgeralds timeless classic, The Great Gatsby. And thank goodness I did, because Luhrmann really hammed it up with this one. Baz Luhrmann was also the director of the contemporary adaptation of Romeo + Juliet that came out in 1996 starring Leo DiCaprio, which Im strangely fond of for whatever reason, despite it clearly not being a great film. He also directed Moulin Rouge! in 2001, which I havent seen, and Australia in 2008, which was a fairly solid film. His rendition of The Great Gatsby, however, was a failure. Not a complete failure, mind you -- it had its moments -- but it definitely fell flat for me. The first problem, once again, came with Lurhmanns strange obsession with modernization. Unlike with R&J, he didnt actually completely modernize this one -- it still took place in 1922, like the novel did -- but Luhrmann insisted on using a soundtrack that consisted of dance, pop, hip hop, and other styles of song that simply could not have existed at that point in time, he utilized cinematography that made the film feel unmistakably modern, and he had his characters behave as if they were products of the 21st century, not its predecessor. This made the entire film feel off-kilter, right off the bat. The glitzy makeover that he gave the story was apparent from the trailers, and it was clear five minutes into the film that this approach simply wasnt going to work. Its possible I would have been a bit more fond of the film if I hadnt read the book first, but that shouldnt be something that holds back a quality screen adaptation. Luhrmanns direction is impressive on a purely superficial level -- its stunning and it draws you in with the promise of something grand -- but all of that falls flat with the lack of execution throughout the other facets of the production. Tobey Maguire fell completely flat as Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, and the vehicle through which we experience it. Maguire slept through his entire role, was solid at times, and was truly bad at other times. His on-screen performance was decent at best, but what really killed this film was Maguires narration. The narration here was some of the worst Ive ever heard in a film, quite literally. And Im not talking about the writing itself -- after all, thats F. Scott Fitzgeralds prose were talking about, absolutely masterful prose at that -- but Maguires delivery of the narration was absolutely nightmarish. It was worse than I can verbalize. On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio did a surprisingly good job as Jay Gatsby. I didnt like the idea of casting DiCaprio as Gatsby much more than I liked the idea of Maguire as Carraway when I first saw it in the previews, but from the second DiCaprio makes his entrance as Gatsby in the film, the movie gets better. The first 15 or 20 minutes or so are a nightmare, but the film starts to pick up momentum when DiCaprio enters the picture. Hes still not my ideal choice for Gatsby -- I would like to see an early 80s version of Kevin Kline playing that role (or someone who could pull off that persona that Kevin Spacey pulled off in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which was either a tribute or a horrible ripoff of The Great Gatsby) -- but DiCaprio pulled it off well, and I commend him on a quality performance. Jason Clarke had a smaller role, and its always nice to see him pop up in films. Carey Mulligan was also very good. In any case, Luhrmann took some liberties with the script, which is okay in itself, but the bits of narration and dialogue that he added that werent originally in the novel generally stood out like a sore thumb, and I think they would have done so, at least to some extent, even if I hadnt read the book first. The one positive side about this film adaptation is that it simplified a lot of the elements of the story and made them more cohesive than they were in the novel. Fitzgerald has a very implicit style of writing. He often neglects to tell you exactly whats going on in a direct and straightforward fashion, relying instead on implication. This, presumably, is an attempt to leave room for the reader to fill in the gaps with his imagination, but it can be frustrating for the reader, and the novel did leave a few little holes in the story that I wouldnt have minded some more clarification on, which the film was able to provide and create a more closely knit fabric for the story. Overall, if youve never read the book, you may find this to be a solid piece of entertainment, but I doubt youll find it to be anything special. And if you have read the book, then this movie is likely to be a belly flop. My overall assessment: decent film, nothing more, nothing less. And it really only gets marked that highly in the first place because of elements of the story that are intrinsic to the novel, the things that were handed to Luhrmann by Fitzgerald. Rating: C (5/10 stars)
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 11:00:23 +0000
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