ce n'est pas genève

NOT SO GREAT, OLD SPORT: A Review of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby 

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As any good tenth-grade English student knows, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece. Having just watched the 2013 film premiere, I am suddenly not completely sure whether Baz Luhrmann has actually read The Great Gatsby – I am only certain that someone on his team failed miserably in helping him grasp its greatness.

Luhrmann’s Gatsby is a gorgeous production. The set design is breathtaking in its colossal grandeur, the costumes a fashion-forward concoction of 1920s New York style, dripping with detail. Every frozen screenshot could pass for a Vogue editorial with Anna Wintour herself at the helm; the film’s use of color and symmetry occasionally mirrors the usually unrivalled Wes Anderson, with other scenes echoing Renaissance art etched on the ceilings of European churches and museums. Moulin Rouge is present throughout the film, Luhrmann’s personal style dominating the spectacular visual that defines his take on Gatsby, particularly evident in the sweeping aerial views of the West Egg mansion and its elaborate parties. A creative and inspired soundtrack complements the visual spectacle, a modern cocktail of jazz and Jay-Z, music industry darlings Lana Del Rey and Florence Welch, the haunting vocals of The XX and Jack White, a 20s-inspired cover of Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love by up-and-comer Emeli Sandé, and Beyoncé herself on a harrowing take on the late Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, featuring André 3000.

Unfortunately, this is where the compliments stop. The film’s theatrical emphasis stalls the story; the glittering visuals detract from the characters’ complexity and the personal nuance that motivates the plot; the 3D effects are overused, distracting at best and gaudy at worst. The movie lacks depth in character and context, relegating important parts of the novel’s foundation to cheesy montages narrated by an altogether forgettable Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway. Jordan Baker is beautifully presented but irrelevant. Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan, on the other hand, is underused, often delivering lines – “I’d rather not be ’the polo player’,” he mumbles gruffly when first introduced to Gatsby – with the perfect blend of brutishness and Shakespearean-like foolishness. Carey Mulligan shows little of Daisy’s enchanting appeal and bewitching persona, emphasized by a palpable lack of chemistry between her and Leonardo DiCaprio. While there is no questioning DiCaprio’s status as a gifted actor, he lacks a certain joie de vivre one associates with the great Jay Gatsby. Only in one scene does DiCaprio outdo himself: the stern-faced Gatsby paralyzed with nervous tension at his reunion with Daisy, dripping with sweat and drenched in rain, surrounded by a garden’s worth of flowers, is finally the Gatsby

Fitzgerald’s readers fell in love with. DiCaprio shows comedic range and depth of character, but his brilliance in the scene only serves to highlight the lackluster performance it interrupts.

Ultimately, the film suffers from Luhrmann’s decision to anchor it in showy visuals rather than the social context of the 1920s American Dream. The attention given to the organized crime culture underpinning the new money crowd – and Gatsby himself – is threadbare, with Meyer Wolfshiem appearing in a mere one scene. Luhrmann further skims over Myrtle and George Wilson, obviously missing their significance in Fitzgerald’s work and – spoiler alert – causing Gatsby’s death to feel hurried and unsatisfying. While the film stays faithful to the plot, Luhrmann goes to lengths so great that it comes off forced, particularly when bits of Fitzgerald’s prose are superimposed word-by-word onto the screen. Maguire’s halting narration is peppered with so many 3D effects that it gives the impression of a heavy-handed first-year film student experimenting with the latest editing software.

A relatively short book in comparison to other literary giants, Gatsby’s greatness lies in its metaphorical genius and the social critique simmering just beneath the surface, a fictional version of Russian nesting dolls. The book’s weight and scope grows the more you read it, like a video game with secret levels unlocked only over time, coded messages that resonate only after thoughtful consideration. I remember dutifully recording the book’s major themes and symbols during my second period English class, awed as I watched it transform from a whirlwind of decadent parties and a rather cliché love story to an intricately spun social satire. While the mechanics of Fitzgerald’s story are there, Luhrmann’s film comes up frustratingly short. Perhaps it is not entirely his fault – given the failure of the 1974 version of Gatsby, starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, perhaps Fitzgerald’s literary masterpiece is one simply better suited to fiction than film.