The Great Gatsby

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of 3D, in general. I think it is unneccesary and sort of silly. It drives up prices even more and for what? A few cheap thrills as something flies towards your face? No thanks. Since there are exceptions to every rule, I have two exceptions for my I Hate 3D rule. They are: Martin Scorsese's Hugo and Ang Lee's Life of Pi. These two films are examples of brilliant directors (two of the aboslute best, really) who know how to make a goddamn movie and know how to use 3D to enhance their films. Hugo was brilliant and while Life of Pi was a flawed masterpiece, the 3D definitely wasn't the problem. Baz Lurhman is already a pretty visual director (that's probably the understatment of the year). Moulin Rouge already popped off the screen and that wasn't even in 3D. When I first heard that The Great Gatsby would be filmed in 3D, I thought it was a terrible idea. Then I saw Hugo and Life of Pi and thought I could have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Lurhman is a great director too, so maybe he will get the 3D thing right also. But here's the problem. I'm not sure Baz had any idea what to really do with the 3D. If anything, I think the 3D in this case was highly detrimental to the film. But more on that in a moment.

In case you haven't read The Great Gatsby since tenth grade English class (unlike me who reread it last month in anticipation), here is the summary. Narrator Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) moves from the MidWest to Long Island in order to become a big wig on Wall Street. Meanwhile, he becomes obsessed with his millionaire playboy neighbor Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) who throws lavish, impossibly crazy parties in order to catch the attention of the girl who got away, and the girl who just so happens to live across the bay, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), who also happens to be Nick's cousin, and also happens to be married to rich brute Tom (Joel Edgerton), who is having his own affair with a trollop named Myrtle (Isla Fisher), who is married to a sweet but stupid mechanic (oh, hey there, Jason Clarke with those sexy eyes). Also, there's sexy, mysterious Jordan (Elizabeth Debicki, doing her best angsty Rooney Mara impression), who is Daisy's bestie and Nick's love interest despite the fact that he's probably gay (at least this is implied in the book. They really make no mention of the fact that he's most likely in love with Gatsby in the movie, and really, why would they? It's not like it's 2013 or anything).

The acting is mostly pretty good. DiCaprio is perfectly cast as Gatsby. He's mysterious and sexy. He pretty much brings it as the pretty boy wanna be rich man. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure Maguire was the right choice for Nick. Sure, he played it well enough (and he had the hard part, what, with that excrutiating framing device), but Nick is supposed to be all wide eyed and innocent and I just didn't really get that vibe from Maguire. He seemed more confused than anything. Clarke, Debicki and Fisher are all fine but they don't really have much to do. Mulligan is fine as Daisy as well, but it's not necessarily her fault that she isn't better. The character of Daisy in the book is not written as a real person but as some sort of fantasy dream girl, so Mulligan does the best she can with a character that isn't necessarily adaptable. The problem with Mulligan's performance is just that she doesn't have any chemistry whatsoever with DiCaprio and that's sort of a problem when you are trying to make a romance movie. The highlight of the film, for me, is Edgerton who is absolutely the only subtle thing about this movie and takes Tom from being just some racist bully and turns him into this very layered, nuanced character.

And speaking of nuance, or lack there of, to say The Great Gatsby is opulent is an understatement. The party scenes are crazy and vivid, the costumes are luxorious and beautiful. But there is also the slight problem of it being all a bit much. The 3D distracts from the costumes which distracts from the music which distracts from the acting. The Great Gatsby is a feast for the eyes, but it is also just too much. The actors and the dialogue (those iconic lines written so many years ago that are still so ingrained in the minds of so many) and, even the plot!, all take a back seat to the crazy visuals.

Now, reading this, you probably assume that I hated The Great Gatsby, and it may sound that way, but it's not the case. I thought it was very flawed but by no means bad. Sometimes it's so good, it almost hurts because you realize what could have been. First things first, I loved the heavily hip hop influenced soundtrack. I guess there are a lot of people hating on the soundtrack because rap wasn't around in the 1920s. First of all, Jay-Z is timeless! Second of all, I don't remember people being all that upset about the music in Moulin Rogue - actually, quite the contrary, I'm pretty sure people loved it - and as far as I know no one was writhing around to Like a Virgin and singing songs by The Police in 1899 France. I also loved the shirt scene (which was always my favorite scene in the book) and I thought the entire sequence of Jay and Daisy reuniting at Nick's house was pretty perfect and funny. Also, you know, whenever Joel Edgerton was on screen was pretty great.

So, maybe it's just that The Great Gatsby isn't adaptable. I mean, the book is something like 150 pages long and it took 2 and a half hours for Baz to tell the tale. Maybe, people should just take 3 or 4 days and read the book again. It's widely considered the greatest American novel ever written for a reason.

Grade: C+