The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013): USA, Australia

Reviewed by Lauren Sousa.  Viewed at Metropolitan Plaza del Oro Theater.

Is it fair to judge the merits of an adaptation against those of its original? Sometimes, that task is impossible: far from Broadway and long after its most recent performance, I may never see the stage version of The Seven Year Itch. Other times, it’s merely an obscure task: surely more people have seen Double Indemnity than read it. Every year, however, several directors will set out to put their own spin on a classic literary creation, such as 2012’s Anna Karenina (and 1997’s Anna Karenina, and 1985’s, 1935’s, and so on). Often, though, those books are thick and only sometimes are they required reading. The most recent literary blockbuster, Baz Luhrmann’s version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, provides an exception: almost everyone has read it, and many love its florid, crystal-clear prose. Luhrmann’s Gatsby doesn’t hold up to Fitzgerald’s book, but that’s not because it isn’t an interesting and exciting film. It’s just very, very different, a film worth seeing, but not for its origin or that origin’s effect on the work.

The plot is familiar: long-lost lovers Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan reconnect on Long Island in the summer of 1922 now that he is rich and she is married. Daisy’s cousin Nick Carraway later writes a book about his adventures with Daisy, Gatsby, her husband Tom and his mistress Myrtle Wilson and her husband George B.

Luhrmann’s biggest change to his source material is a decision to place Nick (Tobey McGuire) not only away from New York but in a mysterious and cold mental institution, where he is diagnosed as morbidly alcoholic and advised to write about his repelling adventures on West and East Eggs. Because his time as a stockbroker there has ruined his life, his attitude towards the events of the movie are more disgusted than those of the book, and it doesn’t entirely fit with the gorgeous mise-en-scène by production and costume designer Catherine Martin. Nick’s character factors into the film far more than he does in the book, which distracts from the other, more interesting plots that the book offers, and his wide-eyed wonderment that slowly decays suggests that all the other characters are simply morally bankrupt and a bad influence, which doesn’t offer them much complexity. By telling the whole story in flashback, though, Luhrmann breaks the film into the same chunks as the book’s chapters do, although his frequent narration makes it seem almost unnecessary.

The plot is also simplified wherever possible, perhaps to shorten the running time, which at 143 minutes is a little bit long. This makes every character but Nick seem very calculating, but it also makes the movie seem that way, as if all the pieces had been planned out before they happened.
The contemporary music (supplemented by “Rhapsody in Blue” and a few other 1920’s hits) works surprisingly well to bring the party scenes genuine life, but the soundtrack is also overly crowded, playing in almost every scene. Whether or not the effect was intended, the quietness in the scene at the Plaza hotel, the best staged in the entire movie, is genuinely shocking and affecting.

Other than that, the performances are not spectacular. The cast doesn’t have any special chemistry, really, but they do just fine. The characters they have chosen to embody don’t fit my interpretation of the novel, but they fit Luhrmann’s or theirs, and the over-the-top treatment of everything but the characters is appropriate for this lush, big-budget travelogue of a version of 1920’s clothes and sets.

It’s an interpretation of the book that is lively, enthusiastic, and not all that true to its source. It’s a visual treat, and the plot and characters are slightly altered for a movie that remains very, very fun while still being just a little bit cynical about where it comes from.

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Published:
08.26.13 / 9am
Category:
Films