Oh, Baz Luhrmann. Why do you do it? Why do insist on making all of your films over-the-top acid trips that overwhelm the senses? People were laughing in the theater at moments that weren’t meant to be funny! I got a headache, and I didn’t even see the 3D version of the movie! And why didn’t anyone tell you that making a 3D version of Gastby, with a soundtrack full of Jay Z no less, is the most ridiculous idea ever???
So yes, I finally bit the bullet last night and saw The Great Gatsby with my husband in the theater. We don’t often make it to the theater anymore. Why bother when you can watch things on Apple TV or Netflix a few months down the road for less money and less hassle? But Gatsby is the one book we agree on as the Great American Novel. We named our son Fitzgerald for chrissakes. So we forked over $22 for this one. Unfortunately.
My expectations were pretty low. Previous efforts to put Gatsby on film have failed miserably. The 1974 version with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow is very pretty, but SO BORING. Redford was trying so hard to be a man of mystery that he comes off as having no personality, which is the opposite of Gatsby’s character. Farrow just comes off as ditsy. But Daisy is a tough role to play. She’s just a unlikeable woman. I’ll get to that later. But anyway, when I heard that Baz was making this movie, I was terrified. OMG, he’s going to turn my favorite book into a musical with a laser light show. NOOOOO. And the result isn’t that far off.
Okay, I don’t hate all of his movies. I adored his Romeo+Juliet when I was in high school. Leo and Claire were perfectly cast, and in that case the modern setting and music totally worked. Moulin Rouge was great fun, but again, how much of that was the charm of Ewan MacGregor and the pretty costumes? Gatsby definitely has pretty costumes. If Baz’s wife, Catherine Martin, doesn’t win the Oscar for best costumes it’ll be a sin. The fashion mags and blogs have been going nuts with flapper madness for at least six months or longer. Vogue did a gorgeous spread with Carey Mulligan last month.
Good thing she looked pretty as Daisy, because that’s the best thing I can say about her performance. So I felt some hope when I saw how beautiful the movie LOOKED. And Leo! Leo is the perfect choice for Gatsby. He’s got the looks, the charisma, the depth, and the Old Hollywood air about him. He looks great in the Brooks Brothers suits. I thought his performance would be brilliant. Not so much. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. But I blame the terrible script and Mulligan, who is just not his equal acting-wise. I will defend Leo to the end, although my husband said he only did this movie because he must have bought a new yacht or mansion that he had to pay for.
So here’s the moment I almost walked out of the theater: At the beginning of the movie, to solve the problem of just doing boring voice-overs as previous versions of the book have done, Baz decides to put Nick Carraway in an asylum and make him an alcoholic. He’s talking to his therapist about Gatsby, and then the therapist recommends that he write about Gatsby as part of his recovery. Oh. My. God. This is so cheesy, and so wrong on so many levels. In the book, Nick is the voice of reason, the moral compass, the normal Midwestern guy. He observes these crazy rich people and realizes how f-ed up their priorities are. He sees the good in Gatsby but also realizes that he makes huge mistakes. So, at the end of the book, Nick rejects their shallow New York lifestyle and moves back to the Midwest, older and wiser. He DOES NOT become an alcoholic in a looney bin. This is not a soap opera, Baz Luhrmann! This infuriated me. Also, you don’t need to type important quotes onto the screen just to drive home an important point. So lame.
Also, why was Jordan even included in this version? She was just a brunette with one facial expression whose only purpose seemed to be to tell Nick to invite Daisy to tea. She had no other subplot. They never talked about how she cheated at golf or went on dates with Nick or anything. She just sat next to Daisy on couches and in cars. That’s it. But whatever.
The music annoyed the piss out of me. If you’re going to leave the setting in the 1920s, use 1920s songs. Hearing Jay Z or Florence Welch or whoever else was on this awful soundtrack completely distracted me and took me out of the story. It’s a feeble attempt at keeping the story hip and current and it didn’t make any sense. If Baz had consulted me about the music, WHICH HE TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE, I would have reminded him of Bon Jovi’s theme song to Young Guns. So silly. So 80s. So wrong. Even having current pop stars sing 1920s songs would have been really charming and fun. I know this is one of Baz’s pet things, the modern soundtrack, but it just doesn’t work with this story. Blech.
Okay, so maybe I’m a bit angrier than I thought I was before I started writing this. So let me tell you the positives. Visually the movie is beautiful and fun. The costumes are fab. The party scenes are totally over-the-top but entertaining. Gatsby’s house I thought was too gigantic to even be realistic. It’s a friggin castle on Long Island, somehow. But the scene where he’s showing Daisy around the house and he’s throwing his fancy shirts around is exactly the way I always pictured it. These scenes between them are charming. I wouldn’t say that Leo and Carey have the greatest chemistry. I think Michelle Williams could have done a great job with this part. As I said, it’s hard to make Daisy sympathetic in any way. But Carey’s version doesn’t stand out at all. She’s supposed to be the It Girl, the most popular socialite around. She just doesn’t pull it off. It’s hard to understand why Gatsby is so obsessed with this girl, which is the core of the story.
Now I’m complaining again. But they look perfect for the parts. And in the scenes where Baz played it straight and cut it out with the hip hop and the glitz, he actually came closer to bringing the novel to life than anyone ever has. The confrontation at the Plaza is actually pretty good and tense, and so is the accident scene. Ilsa Fisher did a great job as Tom’s mistress. Casting Leo and Tobey Maguire together was brilliant, since they are real-life BFFs of so many years. Their rapport seems genuine and caring, which is another core element of the story. When Nick tells Gatsby, “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together,” I believe him.
And Leo is dreamy. He’s maturing very well. He’s not a teen heart-throb anymore, but he’s a handsome grown-up and he’s a fine actor. Usually. This script did him no favors, and he came off sort of wooden. My husband said it seemed like he was reading off cue cards. I think he was a lot better than that. Again, it’s hard to play such an iconic character who doesn’t even seem like a real human. In this version they went for Gatsby as Eternal Optimist and really idealized him, despite his lying and bootlegging. This oversimplifies Gatsby and that is annoying too. This guy created a whole personae for himself that wasn’t real, and it’s tragic to watch his world fall apart. The whole thing is supposed to be a Greek Tragedy, the American Dream gone horribly wrong, where you see the negative consequences of thinking money will bring happiness. Gatsby uses money to win over his true love, but she’s so caught up in her socialite world that she can’t give it all up to be with him. He’s “new money” and that will never fly in her circle of friends. So she stays with Tom, who is the biggest d-bag on earth. Gatsby puts all of his faith in a girl who doesn’t deserve him and he is even willing to get blamed for murder on her behalf. The poor guy is a total sucker. He just can’t deal with the harsh reality that Daisy and Tom are totally selfish a-holes.
So…yeah. If you love the novel, you will hate this movie. Sorry. But you probably already knew that. If you just want to see a fun movie that’s visually cool and has pretty people in it and has fun music (and you don’t care that the music makes no sense for the plot) then go ahead and see it. I did not, as my husband did, think it was one of the worst movies of all time. It was just extremely disappointing.
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