Aha, a film I can truly sink my teeth into, something I have a response to. It was a beautiful film, but I didn't love it, or particularly like it. So I know this has been getting mixed reviews, but that's it, I haven't read anything about it, I just went to see it after reading the book a couple of times to get my own feel for the story. Call me a complete moron but the book, well it just wasn't as all encompassing perfection as I was led to believe, it's just a bunch of frankly terrible people being terrible to one another, don't get me wrong, in some cases that can be more than entertaining; but in this case it was just incredibly sad, and not in a good way. Anyhoo, what could have been an interesting insight into the inner minds and working of the rich and shameless back in the hedonistic 1920s, instead we have this. This is going to have spoilers in, for the film and the book, deal.
Baz Lurhman, what a guy, he has forged a career out of all encompassing love stories, his most famous contributions to cinema being his modern take on Romeo + Juliet (see what you did there Baz.) and his musical Moulin Rouge with Ewan McGreggy and Nicole Kidman. We could also throw Australia in there but the less said about that the better... Romeo + Juliet grabs the most comparisons to Gatsby, both adaptations of well known stories, both studied in schools by bored teenagers and all seeped virtually seamlessly into the world's subconscious, both inherently about love and both have some decent deaths at the end.
The thing about Romeo + Juliet is, although most purists, specifically my granddad, hated it for chopping and dicing the Bard's dialogue and putting it in a modern setting mentioning swords and having guns blah blah and some bizarre costume choices, that it was actually quite a daring and largely successful interpretation of the source material. For it's faults, it still managed to pull off the modern setting and the audaciousness of the whole thing was exciting and fun (I emphasise the word fun.) Also, it's a bit of an odd thing to bring up, but thematically it focused on the fact that the star-crossed lovers were clearly doomed, the whole modern Verona was decked out with a tacky Catholicism, just to hammer home that even the Gods were against them, there was religious paraphernalia all over the shop and even the + in Romeo + Juliet takes on a strange cross like appearance. We were literally hammered over the head with it, but it fit with the soapiness and over-the-topness of the film. Plus we had that little black choir kid singing, and Desree performing 'I'm Kissing You.' - both of which permeate through and enhance the mood and specific scenes as Craig Armstrong applies the music beautifully to the scenes. I'm getting to my point, allow me a ramble.
So then we come to The Great Gatsby, it's Baz Lurhman, it's Leonardo DiCaprio starring in the titular romantic role, and Craig Armstrong is scoring the damn thing, Carey Mulligan, one of the brightest and best young actresses roaming around is playing Daisy, this is a charmed project, it can't go wrong right? Well actually, compared to the messy but realised Romeo + Juliet, this just doesn't have the same energy or coherency, and that's why I keep comparing the two, because there are echoes of the former in this film but they just don't fit in here.
The most glaring example of this would be when Nick Carraway enters the Buchanan household and is introduced to the delightful duo. First off, it all happens incredibly fast, it's almost incomprehensible as Tom is bellowing at Nick about sports then throws him into a room with the girls, material is flying all over the place and there is incessant giggling and the girls emerge ridiculously. Back in Romeo + Juliet times, the characters would literally rattle off incomprehensible reams of text whilst the scene moved about at the same speed; the most prominent example that comes to mind is Juliet's mother talking to her before the party. This scene had the same bizarre energy and ridiculousness to it, and yet here it didn't seem to fit very well, and most irritatingly enough, the rest of the film failed to have anything resembling this within it; so in my head it stuck out like a sore thumb to me, it didn't fit with the mood of the film and it seemed to just introduce the characters (albeit in tune with their distinct personalities) as quickly and dramatically as possible.
Now to ignore everything else and just talk about The Great Gatsby, my main issue with it, was that through the film we spend a hell of a lot of time investing ourselves in the Daisy/Gatsby love affair, but I literally felt nothing. Perhaps from reading the book and never quite having a deep connection with the characters this is has somewhat shaded my perception of the big sweeping love story that I am viewing on the screen, but I never felt it. I'm not going to talk about Romeo and Juliet again but (and let's be honest here, they were adorable together) I never believed in the romance, it just didn't have that spark to it, perhaps it's the acting (as much as it pains me to say that...), perhaps it's the direction, but when you spend so much time with the characters ignoring other plot threads for a decent chunk of the film, it just didn't sit right.
The Great Gatsby isn't an all encompassing love story, it's more complicated than that, and my main hope would be that the film were tease at those complications rather than simply tell the story from start to end. Daisy is a shallow and interesting character in the sense that we're never entirely sure about what she's actually feeling, at least that's why I loathe and love her in equal measure, we know she loved Tom at some point, then Gatsby comes back and sweeps her off her feet with his riches and beautiful things, but is it love? My main question was always, is this a woman capable of love? Or is she just a 'beautiful fool', does she consider herself more than that? I know she does, but the way she acts, she is literally just that, a beautiful fool. All these questions and the film just plays out from one scene to the next adapting the book bit by bit without much time for introspection.
Another Lurhman trope, lifted from Moulin Rouge, is having someone chronicle the events on a typewriter. Carraway being in a psychiatric hospital after being tortured by the events, leads him to be convinced to write about what he experienced by his doctor. Make no mistake this is Gatsby's story, but what irritated me probably the most about Nick was that, sure, he had his problems with alcohol and depression, anxiety etc, but wouldn't all that be more pertinent if he himself had been suffering a broken heart? In the book it's touched upon that Jordan Baker and Nick have a romantic relationship and hurt each other too, but that's completely ignored for the all encompassing Gatsby/Daisy/Tom/Myrtle mess; just my two cents though, it would have given Jordan a little bit more of a reason to keep hanging around, she had so little to do... This also leads the latter parts of the film where Fitzgerald's words are hung on the screen like bits of confetti for us all to see and are narrated to us, but this only becomes a prominent tool later in the film. I just didn't understand the purpose if it, either start off with it like that or bloody don't do it, don't introduce later into the film and then excessively use it in the last act in order to just tie up the story. It just came off as lazy to me, I know the doctor only tells him after the first part to write his story down but, well I didn't like how it was utilised.
While we're at it I might as well list the other things I didn't like it. Nick Carraway wouldn't live in a shitty cabin in the woods between a bunch of castles, just no, that's just beyond stupid. He was a man of means, sure he had barely any money compared to the rest of that lot, but whole point is West Egg isn't as big and expensive as East Egg, in my mind it was really only Gatsby's mansion which was huge, the rest would have been standard mansions, and if not a mansion put Nick in a bloody house that would at least be... Something! Argh. Putting him in the gardener's shed was just cringeworthy... Also, it's probably a well known fact, but I hate Tobey Maguire, not even in a jokey manner, I genuinely hate him, just because he has bulging bright eyes does not make him a decent actor, his voice genuinely made my skin crawl, especially at the beginning when he tries to put on a wise older man voice, oh god, it was just embarrassing. Everyone else did a fine job, although special shout out definitely goes to Joel Edgerton who actually sounded like he was from the 1920s, everything about him just worked, shame nothing else felt like it fit in with the era...
Sure the music is supposed to be anachronistic. Does that mean it worked? No. Good soundtrack, bad execution. Sorry Craig Armstrong, it just didn't work here, and this is coming from someone who has the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack on their iPod...
Don't get me started on the 3D. I saw this in 2D and there were just several scenes where it was painfully obvious that they were meant to be seen in 3D because the focus was all off, and there were plenty of things swirling at the screen for little reason other than to wow people with 3D glasses on. It was annoying, as someone who likes their films on the screen embedded there without any trickery, it was painful to see this film so blatantly meant to be in 3D for so little reason other than it would make more money...
I'm going to sum this all up as succinctly as I can now. I didn't like The Great Gatsby, because it was a flashy expensive and boring. It had the Baz Lurhman flourishes, epic love story, death, maddeningly popular soundtrack, a dude writing on a typewriter, intense imagery, drama, lots of dancing, lots of pointless dancing, partying, and beautiful people with beautiful problems, but it just all rang so hollow. Non of it quite meshed, the plot just moved from one set piece to another, there was a few chuckles, there were a few (intended) tears, a few (unintended) guffaws, and absolutely no heart or soul or connection throughout. It just didn't work.
Plus call me an idiot, but a guy getting shot whilst lazing about on a lilo in his expensive pool I thought would have been a much better way to end it than the Baz Lurhman, shock eyed, died too soon, oh the humanity, moment. Worked in Romeo and Juliet, here it was just... blah. And on that bombshell.
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