REVIEW: THE GREAT GATSBY

THE GREAT GATSBY  (May 10, 2012)
2.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Elizabeth Debicki, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke
PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language.

Baz Luhrmann, the director known for glitzy, over-the-top passion and spectacle in films like ROMEO+JULIET and MOULIN ROUGE!, has released his first film in five years.  It's certainly not the longest stretch of time between films for him though, after all, THE GREAT GATSBY is only his fifth theatrically-released feature film since he appeared on the scene in 1992 with STRICTLY BALLROOM.  His last film, AUSTRALIA, came out in 2008, and despite its top-notch production values, the bloated romantic epic underwhelmed audiences with its thin script.  I'm not really much of a Luhrmann fan; his flair for loud and flashy production values tend to give me a headache or even make me nauseous, especially MOULIN ROUGE!, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and is considered his masterpiece, but I loathed.  I never really cared a whole lot for F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby either, maybe because I read it for school, but I can understand why others love it and why it's considered the "Great American Novel" by so many.  It just wasn't really for my taste.  Notwithstanding, when I heard that Luhrmann was planning to direct a film adaptation of Gatsby, I couldn't think of a better match for the material.  Some people have voiced opinions suggesting some sort of eccentricity to the pairing, but I never thought so for a second.  What director could be more suited to direct the ultimate story of the Roaring Twenties, with all the excess, the moral looseness, the passions and the tragedy?  I don't want to sound like I set myself up to dislike this film because I certainly didn't; I was very interested by some of the advertising, I'm a Leo DiCaprio fan and I did like the film, albeit, mildly.

Maguire as your humble narrator, Nick Carraway

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, shame on you, and, it's told from the perspective of one Nick Carraway, here played by Tobey Maguire.  Nick is a Minnesotan who goes to New York in 1922 to become a bonds broker when postwar United States is in an economic boom state and Prohibition has made alcohol less expensive and more popular than ever.  His neighbor is a mysterious millionaire by the name of Jay Gatsby, played by Leonardo DiCaprio (who played Romeo in Luhrmann's ROMEO+JULIET), who throws extravagant parties every week which are a draw to all of New York.  Nobody knows much about Gatsby or how he made his millions, but Gatsby acquaints himself with young Nick to enlist him in wooing his cousin, Daisy, played by Carey Mulligan.  Daisy is married to a brutish former jock named Tom Buchanan, played by Joel Edgerton, who cheats on her with another married woman, Myrtle Wilson, played by Isla Fisher; Daisy is a simple-minded but sweet girl with whom Gatsby had a romance prior to serving in the war, but postponed plans to marry her so he could build his fortune.
The story is one of the dark side of the American Dream, the social and moral decay which accompanies the material excess of prosperity, the assigning of value to illusions and material and reaching desperately for a hollow ideal.

Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, like Estella, but dumb and sweet

Luhrmann's script (co-written by Craig Pearce) is very faithful to the source material, although not the the extent which crippled the Francis Ford Coppola-penned 1974 adaptation.  In contrast, it is an addition to the novel's material which does the most harm in the script, and that is a framing story in which Nick is telling his story to a psychiatric doctor in a Minnesota sanitarium.  In this sanitarium, he his stubbled and unkempt, in treatment for "morbid alcoholism", following the events of the main story.  As the film keeps returning to this plot device, it becomes a distraction and eventually turns corny and cliche. 
The film also suffers somewhat from an uneven tone, with a first hour or so that is booming with excessive energy, not always for the better, in a style characteristic of Luhrmann's other works, but after a gradual easing on the throttle near the end of the first hour, the film becomes unfocused and sputters between soft romantic scenes and high-octane, angst-ridden scenes.

DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Patron Saint of the 1920s

The film has a tremendous strength though in DiCaprio's performance as Gatsby, a performance worthy of an Oscar nomination.  DiCaprio's Gatsby is sincere but confused, passionate yet suppressed, and he gets every detail perfect as the multi-layered character in pursuit of a hollow dream and hiding behind multiple masks.  I am compelled to also note that his character is given a truly magnificent entrance accompanied by chords of Rhapsody in Blue and fireworks in the background.  Although I assume there's some computer trickery involved, the youthful depictions of Gatsby played by other actors have an uncanny resemblance and a younger-looking DiCaprio is a spot-on effect too.  Edgerton is also excellent as Daisy's antagonistic husband Tom; Edgerton is far better known for conservative, nice guy performances in movies like WARRIOR, THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN and ZERO DARK THIRTY, so it's fun to see him letting loose as the rough and tough "good ol' boy".

Edgerton as Tom Buchanan: racist, philandering polo player

Although mainly in that no-holds-barred first hour, there's also lots of really fun "rollercoaster" CGI shots, such as one that starts at the heights of the New York City skyline and then plunges down to the pavement below, or high speed travel shots across the bay between the East and West Egg neighborhoods.  I didn't see the film in 3D, but even much moreso than typical 3D, I would expect it to induce severe nausea.  Every shot is so perfectly choreographed, as if the filmmakers expected every frame of film to be used as a publicity still; had the film been released last Christmas as originally intended, it would have been a very strong candidate for cinematography and production design awards.

Parties are bigger and liquor is quicker

Although there are such moments, THE GREAT GATSBY is less a victim of Luhrmann's tendency for garish excess and grotesque mugging than in his other films.  There's a greater tenderness to much of this, and Luhrmann is clearly passionate about the source material.  Especially in the last fifteen minutes or so that lead up to Gatsby's imminent fate, there are some surprisingly touching and beautiful cinematic moments.  It's dreamy and full of admiration, with a pretty if not exactly outstanding musical score by Craig Armstrong, and a hit-and-miss assortment of energetic pop songs performed by artists too "in" for someone as out-of-touch with the modern music scene as me to be at all familiar with.  I don't give a hoot in hell if the movie doesn't actually "capture the spirit" of Fitzgerald's novel; it's a movie, and that's a book, and it's the same story told by different people.  Anyway, Luhrmann clearly reads the novel differently than literary scholars, but it's evident that he's passionate about the source material.  He amplifies the aspects he most connects with, that being a "doomed romance," and that's just fine; if only his execution were more even.