“The Not So Great Gatsby” by Baz Luhrmann

Hold your guns. “not so great” doesn’t mean to say that the film wasn’t good. It just wasn’t great. Maybe it was the delayed release, the great expectations the soundtrack built, or maybe it ‘s Baz Luhrmann. I just felt like I didn’t get what I came for. I left the cinema feeling like I was slightly conned into buying a ticket for the greatest show on earth but it only lasted 15 minutes. And it wasn’t even great.

Let me explain what I mean.

***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT***

The film starts off with Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), a depressed alcoholic, staring outside the window with a disillusioned look on his face. He’s in a mental asylum, sitting in a room with his doctor who is asking Carraway to tell him where “it all started”. Carraway is struggling to fully account everything verbally so his doctor suggests he write it all down. And this is where we the audience begin our retrospective journey through Carraway’s memories.

And it started off well. A good exposition was set up and all the necessary introductions were made. And then we came to what most people had come to see, the parties. And they certainly didn’t disappoint. Baz Luhrmann certainly knows how to throw a party. Simon Duggan also did a magnificent job with the cinematography, and colouring and lighting couldn’t have been any better. Visually, throughout the whole film, Luhrmann didn’t falter a single bit. Props to the whole crew for making what is so far 2013′s biggest spectacle.

But that’s all it was for me, a spectacle. And that’s not what a movie should be. Especially when it is based on a critically acclaimed, award-winning novel. I don’t think Luhrmann saw in the novel the great story that everyone else sees; and yes of course everyone has their own interpretation of it but it seems like he read the book and immediately pictured the parties, the dancing, the costumes etc. It’s as though the story came second to all of the aforementioned things. Which is never a good thing. And this is where it all started to go wrong for me.

I found myself focusing more on what great big party scene or exquisite scenery Baz was going to throw at us next rather than the actual story itself, probably because Baz himself was more focused on that too. I feel like the only thing that upholds a narrative that even remotely interesting are the lead actors. I don’t see Fitzgerald’s underlying contempt for this lifestyle portrayed throughout the film until the very end (a little at the beginning but that is easily forgotten). It was a good thing Baz had such a highly talented cast, or else there wouldn’t have been much depth to the story at all. The tragic romance between Daisy and Jay is so well conveyed by Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio and at times when you sit back and start to lose focus, the pair give us some really evoking performances and that hook you back in. Isla Fisher (Myrtle Wilson) and Joel Edgerton (Tom Buchanan) also deliver equally satisfying performances, neither overdid their roles and when the situation required it of them, they shone in the spotlight.

But Tobey Maguire was the one that really surprised me. If you read my previous post on The Great Gatsby then you’ll know that I was expecting to be surprised but Maguire really pushed the envelope here. Although his narration at times is a little drab and dreary, Maguire’s performance in the movie is undoubtedly enjoyable. What we also have to remember here is that Nick Carraway is not the protagonist, Gatsby is. Carraway is the third person, the narrator. With the love story of Jay and Daisy being so overbearing in the movie, it’s easy to forget that Carraway is Gatsby’s only confidant. Carraway was the only person who Gatsby trusted enough to tell his deepest secrets to and the two develop a close friendship over the course of the story. It’s easy for Carraway to become the person who is simply just witnessing all these things.

Maguire and DiCaprio, who have been friends for over 10 years, definitely capture this intimate friendship on-screen. The scene where Jay is preparing Nick’s house for Daisy’s arrival comically proves this. Though it amusing to see “The Great Gatsby” blunder, in this scene we also see a compulsive Gatsby who looks to Nick for reassurance. Nick is the first to see this vulnerable part of Gatsby, and sees him for who he really is and it is in these moments that the foundations of their friendship is formed. Maguire is the Gatsby’s voice of reason and two compliment each other. But besides this and the scene after the death of Myrtle where Nick is questioning Jay’s ethics and morals in the Buchanan’s garden, the film itself doesn’t capture the uniquely peculiar bond between them.

The movie overall felt rushed; I wanted Baz to dive deeper into the the Nick and Jordan storyline, Meyer Wolfsheim comes and goes like a blur and before we know it, Gatsby’s dead. Yes, visually it is a giant to behold and very pleasing to the eye, the cast is also well suited to their roles and deliver outstanding performances.

But Luhrmann seems to have misunderstood what the main focus should have been here, F.Scott Fitzgerald’s story. The film is after all called “The Great Gatsby” no? Lurhmann may have understood the story but he doesn’t convey this understanding in his movie, portraying Gatsby as the victim of his own “American dream”. Gatsby is not a victim, we should not feel sorry for Gatsby. Yes he was unjustly shot but the man is everything that is wrong with decadence and idealism. He has tried so hard to change who he is in order to recreate a particular time in his life that he has manifested into an obsessive disaster, shrouding himself in fancy things and his obsession with Daisy so he can remember to forget what he was. Gatsby is not someone we should aspire to be, he isn’t even a role model; he’s a cautionary tale. However, Lurhmann fails to show us this. He takes the grit out of the story and keeps everything else, a great injustice to the novel that is considered Fitzgerald’s magnum opus.

The movie is good, but it’s nowhere near great. After all, you can’t rush greatness. And that’s exactly what the film felt like. Luhrmann didn’t take the time to explore the essence of what “The Great Gatsby” is about and ended up making a film with a lot of style and no substance.

SCORE OUT OF 10: 5.5