Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) arrives in 1920s New York having had his head turned by the huge amounts of green suddenly available to anyone who can get into the game and finds himself living next door to the most enigmatic and successful player in the area. Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a legend in his own lifetime and immensely assured when it comes to absolutely everyone.
People come from miles around to enjoy the Gatsby parties night after night without knowing anything more about the man than a few long ago constructed rumours. Gatsby is king of the facade but we soon learn that he has one huge weakness in his armor of rumour and wealth, Nick’s unhappily married cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan).
With The Great Gatsby, director Baz Luhrmann captures the spirit of the glittery 20s in his usual over the top eclectic style, helped by Shawn Carter. Jay Z and Amy Winehouse bring to pre-depression New York what David Bowie and T Rex brought to turn of 20th century Paris and Candi Staton brought to fair Verona. The score is always appropriate to the situation if misplaced in the wrong decade or even the wrong century.
Baz Luhrmann is nothing if not predictable. He favours the tragic love story, preferably with a colourful setting and chooses to make them more colourful and vibrant still. Shame some of the lead characters lacked some of that colour that the settings and Gatsby himself have. DiCaprio plays his part joyfully, only hampered by a clunky vocal tick, a device used by Gatsby in his act of having ‘old money’.
Maguire is cutesy as the trusty and earnest Mr Carraway, eager and willing to worship Gatsby just as everyone else did. But Carraway fancied himself just a little more idealistic than the common be-feathered party goer and as Gatsby reveals bigger and bigger slices of himself to Carraway you could almost believe that the love story of the piece is between the two men and not between Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Carey Mulligan is just a bit insipid as the love of Gatsby’s life and having not read the novel, I couldn’t say whether F.Scott Fitzgerald paints a more illuminating and engaging picture of Mrs Buchanan than we see here.
The ending is sadly also far too much of a damp squib to provide much of a legacy for this extravaganza of champagne cocktails and interesting cinematography. DiCaprio can hold his head high but I’m not sure anyone else can. Good effort but could try harder.
Maryann has awarded The Great Gatsby (2013) three Torches of Truth
