The Great Gatsby Reviews

Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of the famed-F. Scott Fitzgerald-novel is a stylish, majestic and splendid presentation. Remarkable from every frame to every vibrant song, The Great Gatsby successfully illustrates the benevolent nature that its author envisioned and is a visual grandeur that is sure to strike the eyes of its audience. 4/5

I had forgotten everything about the book, so it seem to be a fresh telling of an old story!

Three stars for DiCaprio's performance and for nice visual stimulation. The film itself was frightfully boring otherwise.

Beautiful visuals hold up an interesting study of a flawed character. As someone who is not a student of the book, I can't speak to its justice of execution, but it's a fine film in itself. Full review later.

I can't remember the last time a film took me by surprise quite as much as Baz Luhrmann's lavish, lascivious adaptation of The Great Gatsby. If you've seen the marketing for the film you might think (as I did) that you know what to expect, but beyond all the glitz and spectacle, Luhrmann and his fantastic cast offer a faithful, enveloping and timely take on the greatest novel of the twentieth century.

Luhrmann's unique vision of Gatsby that gets off to such a rocky start that it's tempting to write the film off. This is the film we saw in the trailers, where it feels like the director is retreating back to the past success of Moulin Rouge, tragically taking a treasured classic with him. Snatches of story are doled out amidst the chaos of the decadent backdrop, an attempt to disorient us alongside Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) that just doesn't succeed. However just as it reaches insufferable limits, Luhrmann reigns in his most self-indulgent whims and lets F. Scott Fitzgerald take over.

Having a top-notch cast inhabit these iconic roles really brings out the power of the story, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Joel Edgerton in particular shine through Luhrmann's bluster when he lets them, as he thankfully does for the second half of Gatsby. DiCaprio expertly juggles both sides of Jay Gatsby, transforming his enigmatic traits into insecurity and warped ambition, and Edgerton captures the brash entitlement of the vile Tom Buchanan wonderfully.

Luhrmann has never been known for his restraint, yet beyond the difficult opening act he manages to engage through story not style, even saving a stinging indictment of modern excess that hovers just out of reach right until the closing moments. Like the titular character himself, there's much more to Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby below the surface.

In my review of Life of Pi five months ago, I spoke about the difficulties of adaptation and the snobbery associated with film versions of celebrated works of literature. This becomes all the more magnified when we combine F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the great American novelists, with Baz Luhrmann, one of the world's most divisive filmmakers. But while The Great Gatsby may not quite be great, it is a great deal better than many would have us believe.

Like all of Luhrmann's films, appreciating Gatsby requires at least some understanding of his style and intentions. Many of the common criticisms of his work stem from misplaced expectations, with people reprimanding him for consciously emphasising things he never intended. Many will dismiss this film as flashy, shallow or over-the-top, but to do so would greatly underestimate the unique qualities that Luhrmann brings, which set the film apart from many more conventional adaptations.

Luhrmann has always been more interested in drawing comparisons between different themes and cultures than he has ever been in historical fidelity. He never settles for realism as a substitute for storytelling, and frequently bend the rules of reality to make a point. Take Gatsby's car as an example. Any historian or mechanic will tell you that no car in the 1920s could possibly drive that fast - but it doesn't matter. Luhrmann is using it to make a point about Gatsby as a person, using it to represent his affluence, his individuality and the danger that surrounds him.

It's therefore fair to say that this film is not one for purists of period detail. While many of the novel's most famous moments are replicated (including the famous shirts scene), Luhrmann makes no attempt to ground every second in the 1920s. This is clearly seen in the soundtrack, arranged by Jay-Z and featuring a Jack White cover of U2's 'Love Is Blindness' during the car crash. Merely capturing a period is not a sign of substance, and there is a lot of substance in amongst the show-stopping fun.

As with Moulin Rouge!, Luhrmann is drawing a parallel between two different periods of Western history, illuminating similarities with the past in order to provoke discussion about the present. In Moulin Rouge! he compared the Bohemian culture of the 1890s with the rave culture of the 1990s, highlighting the similar levels of drug abuse, sexual freedom and potential levels of heartbreak. Christian's reaction at Satine's sudden death from tuberculosis reflects the anguish of anyone who lost their friend to an ecstasy overdose or other such tragedy.

In this case, Luhrmann contrasts the Roaring Twenties that Gatsby inhabits with our world before the collapse of Lehmann Brothers. The characters operate in a world in which traditional boundaries (whether moral or regulatory) no longer have any power, meaning or relevance. Hedonism and financial prosperity go hand in hand, and it doesn't matter where the money comes from so long as it ends up in the right places. This is truly akin to the world Professor Millar described in Britannia Hospital as "a tiny minority indulg[ing] themselves in absurd and extravagant luxuries!".

There's no denying that Luhrmann knows how to shoot a party. The parties at Gatsby's mansion are even more elaborate and chaotic than the dance floor antics in Moulin Rouge!, with impeccable choreography and a constant need for the next act to one-up its predecessor. Both Christian and Nick Carraway are caught in the middle of a maelstrom, and so the same principle applies with regards to the editing of these parties. Luhrmann intends to confuse and deprive you of the full picture, putting you in the shoes of impressionable young men whose minds are truly being blown.

The Great Gatsby is emphatically about money, using each of the main characters to make a point about different kinds of wealth. Tom represents landed or old money, treating his future wife like another one of his sporting trophies. Nick is technically a member of the nouveau riche, working as he does in the stock exchange, but Tom tolerates him because he seems honourable - though their friendship is based many on pity and a shared interest in certain, allowable kinds of indulgence.

Gatsby's wealth, with its mysterious and sudden origins, threatens Tom's ethic of hard work, good sportsmanship, and above all knowing one's place. Gatsby's recurring remark, "old sport", has a ring of mockery to it, which only gets louder as we discover more about his humble beginnings. In the middle of these are the two women, one a charming parasite, the other an innocent with a voice like money. Daisy may be part of Tom's world, but she allows her head to be ruled by her heart, and its many conflicting decisions make her impossibly impulsive.

As much as it captures the excess of 1920s America, the film avoids falling into the Scarface trap of accidentally celebrating it. On the contrary, Luhrmann uses the indulgence of the characters to draw out the novel's comments about deification and the pursuit of empty gods. Both Daisy and money are deified in the characters' eyes, with neither Tom nor Gatsby being able to see any fault in her. They devote their lives to satisfying both gods through material offerings, Tom by legitimate means, Gatsby by illegal ones. But of course, Daisy isn't perfect, and as both characters realise this their lives steadily crumble, with one being murdered and the other leaving his estate.

The performances in The Great Gatsby are largely excellent. Leonardo di Caprio is brilliant in the central role, exuding the intriguing confidence of Gatsby, but also doing well to highlight his obsessions and insecurities. Joel Edgerton is deeply intimidating as Tom, contrasting his aggressive physical presence with Gatsby's flamboyance and laid-back demeanour. Carey Mulligan understands that her character is meant to be unlikeable, and she holds our attention by playing Daisy's reactions with unerring honesty. Even Toby Maguire makes the best of arguably the weakest role, resisting the urge to just play gormless in every shot.

Like Luhrmann's other films, The Great Gatsby is awash with references to other heady works of cinema. Gatsby's death has a real similarity to the ending of Scarface, right down to di Caprio's fall into the swimming pool. The parties drew on the elaborate dance sequences of Busby Berkeley, which also inspired the opening of Temple of Doom. And much of the film reflects the jaded cynicism of Chinatown, though the car crash is nothing like as earth-shattering as the final four minutes of Polanski's film.

There are a couple of small problems with Gatsby, which are hard to overlook even for a die-hard Luhrmannite. The most obvious of these is that the wraparound doesn't work. Luhrmann must be given props for wanting to keep the attention focussed on Nick, and it makes sense for him to be writing his work while drying out from alcohol abuse. But while a similar device worked wonders in Moulin Rouge!, in this case it undermines some of the cinematic quality that Luhrmann was going for.

The other huge problem is the 3D. As with Life of Pi, there is no part of the film that benefits from it, and it frequently serves to alienate the audience. The opening sequence of walking through Gatsby's doors is pure showing-off, and the long tracking shot across the bay feels like it was included purely for showcase the technology. Such sequences are not impressive, nor do they contribute to the story, and the 30% colour loss works against Luhrmann's ravishing cinematography.

The Great Gatsby is an audacious new adaptation of Fitzgerald's enduring novel. The artistic liberties that Luhrmann takes with the period setting and narrative mean that it may not bring in new audiences in quite the same way as Romeo + Juliet. But despite its problems, it is still a meaty and exciting visual feast, which provides much by way of thrilling spectacle and leaves you with plenty to dwell on afterwards.

I like F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel 'The Great Gatsby', but like many 'Must see' and 'One of the greatest books of all time' though, I didn't love it. What I did love though was the mystery and the beautifully written descriptions of the wild and reckless parties of the over privileged. Please read the book before watching the film, it really is worth it and I think you will enjoy both film and book a little bit more in that order. When I heard Baz Luhrmann was set to direct I thought, yes, for once they've got it spot on, he is the perfect choice of director. Well, read the stars people, I found it all a bit disappointing. Firstly, the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby and Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway was wrong. I can think of dozens for better suited actors for each role. However, Joel Edgerton was perfect as Tom Buchanan and Elizabeth Debicki played Jordan Baker just as I had imagined her in the book. Carey Mulligan was actually quite good too but I still don't see her as an object of desire worth fighting over. The problem with this film adaptation is that it is over the top, Luhrmann style, when it shouldn't be and not over the top enough when it should be. The famous scene on the way back home after the argument at the end of the story was completely muddled and no where near as good as it was in the book and it wasn't as if it was impossible to film. Some of the beautifully written parts of the book aren't even filmed, instead the words flash up in the sky which is ineffective and a bit lazy to be honest. It really is a case of trying too hard and not trying hard enough, I'm not sure Luhrmann really made the film he wanted to make and the results reflect this. It was always going to be impossible to please everyone, he should have just done what he does best and gone for it. There were scenes towards the middle of the film that were so dull it was hard to believe it was a Luhrmann production! Don't get me started on the soundtrack, what the hell was that? Oh look, Jay Z was executive producer, surprise surprise..

A very faithful adaptation that, with all its glamorous costume and production design, overstylized visuals and anachronic music that only add to it, proves to be a surprisingly riveting experience and lives up to the good novel that inspired it.

I cannot relate to certain story, theme or motif when it is unashamedly placed below stylization. Even with Leonardo DiCaprio's effort in his characterization, the anachronistic musical choices, onanistic visuals and overall camp attitude turns unintentionally amusing, and serves only to detract and damage the core of the piece.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterwork The Great Gatsby has yet again been adapted to the screen. Now, I have never read the book, but I intend to, and with that said, I quite enjoyed this drama. Directed by Baz Luhrmann who directed Moulin Rouge crafts an entertaining film that is held together by a great cast of talented actors. Although not a flawless period piece, The Great Gatsby is still an accomplished film that should appeal to fans of the book. Leonardo DiCaprio is great as the titular character and the plot has enough drama to keep you interested from start to finish. The film's visual style is quite good, and I'm usually one to love period films. I've heard a lot of negative things about Luhrmann's work, and this is the first film I've seen of his, it's quite good if love these types of movies. If you enjoy a good period drama, then give it a shot. DiCaprio makes the film what it is, and Tobey Maguire delivers one of better performances in a while. The cast did a great job with the material at hand, but some viewers might not enjoy the excessive CGI tricks, which are decent, but shouldn't be a cause for concern because the plot is quite good and entertaining. If you want to watch a different type of drama, check this one out, it is not what it could have been, but it is a fine film nonetheless and it worth seeing if you enjoy a well structured drama with fine performances a decent visuals. The Great Gatsby is more a film about a great story than anything else. Luhrmann may have a so-so career, but he does good work here.

Although the movie starts off badly, overrun by Luhrmann's overbearing style, it redeems itself with a more than exceptional performance from Leonardo DiCaprio. The middle and end parts of the film are also redemptive, relying more on plot than on Luhrmann's direction. This is by far the best Gatsby adaptation to date. It is a very entertaining, intense film which unfortunately is a byproduct of its sacrificing many of the themes which made the book great. At times the themes of the book are stressed on too heavily at the expense of the film's quality. At other times the themes are glossed over by Luhrmann's highly stylized direction. Regardless of its thematic inconsistency, The Great Gatsby excels where it counts. The film captures the tension and drama of the book fantastically and coupled with Leonardo DiCaprio in a role he was born to play, ends up being well worth it. Its hard not love The Great Gatsby. It has so much heart and passion because of its wonderful source material. Even the at times obnoxious direction cannot spoil this adaptation of one of the greatest American novels of all time. This movie is by no means as good as the book. It is mostly hit and miss in that regard. But as far as adaptations of books go, I have learned to treat movies as a separate entities because otherwise I would always be disappointed. So as a stand-alone movie it succeeds on multiple levels and I highly recommend it.

literature and cinema are two of my greatest passions. when they come together well i am elated. from all i had heard, this was a failed attempt at bringing FSF's novel to life. while i agree with the popular sentiment that it doesnt quite have the soul of the novel, i was still very pleased with this film. in fact, i think its quite exceptional. as i see it, as a genre piece it accomplished things tht may not have "soul", but it certainly has flare and still carries the philosophical undertones of the novel in an interesting way. this isnt the grand portrayal of the novel that that novel some day deserves to see on film, but there is a place for this movie as an addition to Gatsby's legacy in americana. the soundtrack is atrocious, and the only reason the film isnt rated even more highly, but overall i loved this movie.

The Great Gatsby is an overstuffed, entertaining and visually dazzling éclair full of wonderful 20's fashions, millions of extras, big crane shots, loud Jay Z hip hop music and a solid anchoring star turn by the increasingly great Leo DeCaprio. The 3D glasses are well worth the extra $5. Sadly, though it follows the plot points of F. Scott Fitzgerald's beloved classic, it totally misses the meaning and emotional grounding of that book.
The story of personal reinvention and obsession is perfectly personified by DeCaprio, who is far better than the bland Robert Redford from the 70's movie. Jay Gatsby is a mysterious Long Island Millionaire with mob connections, who throws huge parties nightly in the hope that they will lure the now remarried love of his life, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). Mulligan is an excellent actress in almost everything she's in, but here she is miscast as a stunning beautiful and empty object of obsession. In this film, Mulligan is merely pretty, almost mousy, not even very interesting, and it's hard to care if Gatsby wins her back or not. Toby Maguire is Nick Carraway, the failed writer and Daisy's cousin, who Gatsby uses to affect a reunion. His performance is solid and he and DeCaprio have great chemistry. Mulligan does not have great chemistry, nor with anyone else in the movie. Joel Edgerton (Tom Buchanan) plays Daisy's philandering husband as a moustache twirling villain, and Isla Fisher as his mistress is rather wasted in the role of the lower class vamp.
Luhrmann doesn't trust his audience's intelligence, so that when Leo makes his big Gatsby entrance half an hour into the film, fireworks are bursting over the Long Island night sky, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is cranked to '11'. Oh, I guess he's an important character, then? The second half of the movie feels more like the book, but by that time, the film has lost its chance to move the audience, and Mulligan leaves such a non-impression that when we find out she's a shallow nothing, we're not remotely surprised, or don't actually care - and this is the moment that the whole book turns on.
Baz Luhrmann had great success with a similar overblown and bold approach on Romeo and Juliet, but he had the Shakespeare script to fall back on. This script is defeated by the self-consciously overblown production. Every time I got close to having an emotion, something flew out at me or some loud hip hop number came on (BTW, I like the Beyonce remake of Back to Black by Amy Winehouse, but it still distracted me from the story). The excesses of the production detract from the emotional resonance inherent in Fitzgerald's tale. Baz is a very talented visionary director, but with no one to rein him in, he may ruin other great literature this way. I hope someone will stop him, or creatively rein him in the future, or maybe he'll stay away from classics and spare us all.

The Mediocre Gatsby. I'm not a fan of the book anyway. The symbolism is heavy-handed and vaguely nonsensical: the green light, the blue car, the optometrist ad watching over the Valley of Ashes. We get it...but we don't. The awkward love plot is also full of "Really?" moments: Jay Gatsby moves to West Egg and hosts lavish parties that all of Manhattan's upper crust attend, yet Daisy, a veritable partygirl, never hears of him? Really? The self-made millionaire goes through several needless channels of matchmaking (Jordan and Nick) just to arrange a meeting with Daisy? Really? As friend, Molly Brost, notes, "For a book with adultery, murder, and lavish parties, the story is quite boring. I can't even remember who dies at the end."

Fitzgerald fans may be satisfied though. Style auteur Baz Luhrmann's glitzy rendition does stick incredibly true to the book in terms of story and theme: the love plot is awkward, and the symbolism is heavy-handed. Barring some odd, hopefully out-of-context comments about how Lurhrmann wishes the movie will spark several Gatsby-themed parties this summer, the movie is visually sumptuous (if a bit Moulin-Rouge-formulaic) but also effectively condemns our obsession with wealth and the American Dream. The parties are indeed lavish, the anachronistic soundtrack is intriguing, the frame story of Nick in a sanitarium is unnecessary but pays kind tribute to FSF's prose, which we rarely see in film adaptations of literary classics.

I don't like the faces or voices or acting styles of Leonardo DiCaprio nor Tobey Maguire, so Carey Mulligan's sleek bob, narrow shoulders, and high breathy voice claimed most of my attention. However, more could have been done to show Daisy's vapidity and shallowness but also her fear of monetary instability.

'The Great Gatsby'. The production and costume design rock! Mulligan and DiCaprio are darn good. Luhrmann's direction and the soundtrack are both overbearing and forced at times.

It feels a lot like a soap opera at times, and at others the style can be a bit overly aggressive, but Gatsby is an entertaining ride featuring multiple fine performances, especially from Maguire.

Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" has flaws. For starters, it's visually and sonically bloated and about a half-hour too long (total running time is almost two-and-a-half hours). But it is also magical, complex, intelligent, and a true work of art -- one of the best films of 2013 thus far, probably the best so far.

The film has triggered in me a great desire to finally read the novel (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925). This is not just a story about characters; it's a layered, poetic meditation on the meaning and quality of modern life. When the book was first published, if must have felt like an embodiment of the young 20th century. Young writer, young era, young characters. (Fitzgerald was in his 20's when he wrote it.)

What I love about this adaptation is that Luhrmann has found a way to make it speak in the same way to the young 21st century. By incorporating Jay Z and other contemporary music and giving the film a highly current feel, Luhrmann has given the tragic story of Gatsby and Daisy the opportunity to speak to us as it did to our grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations. All of us moderns. We may be later-modern, but there's something about the reckless frenzy of the 1920s that feels recognizable, like we're in the later phases of an epoch that began in Fitzgerald's time.

Yes, the soundtrack is often too loud and overpowering, but that musical intensity is essential to Luhrmann's artistic aim here. I think sometimes the music is meant to be a bit grating for middle-aged viewers, as jazz and Gershwin were to middle-aged ears in the 1920s. One of the most distinctive aspects of the modern era is the explosion of pop music, which young people always yearn to play at high volumes. Luhrmann has a masterful eye for noticing similarities like this across the different decades of the modern era. He connects the dots across time periods in ways that no other filmmaker can.

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For those who don't know the novel, the basic parameters of the story are as follows. The narrator is Nick Carraway (here played adequately by Tobey Maguire), an upper-middle-class Midwestern boy just out of college who moves to New York a few years after the war (WWI) and gets a job on Wall Street.

He rents a small house right next to a gaudy mansion owned by a mysterious Oz-like bachelor named Gatsby (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). Directly across the bay from them is a palatial estate owned by a young couple, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who both come from old money.

Nick quickly realizes that Daisy and Gatsby have a romantic history. The central drama that emerges concerns whether Daisy (played well by Carey Mulligan) is going to leave her unfaithful husband, whom she doesn't really love, break the taboos of her class, and marry the up-from-the-gutter Gatsby. As you can see, class hierarchy is a central theme.

These days, this theme tends to cause eye-rolling because in the the past 100 years class stratification has decreased, making American society less caste-like. Self-made men and women travel among old money with greater ease today than ever before. But just because class lines are somewhat permeable today doesn't mean they don't exist. Every American today has had some experience with class stratification. Anyone who denies that is lying -- to himself.

Luhrmann succeeds in depicting the power of social hierarchy as it must have felt for people like Gatsby and Daisy. Luhrmann also triumphs in depicting the power of their love. I don't believe I will ever forget the intensity of the sequence where Gatsby and Daisy see each other for the first time since their break-up five years earlier. DiCaprio and Mulligan capture the terror and bliss of this moment magnificently, especially DiCaprio. Rarely have I seen a male actor depict romantic turmoil so well. Gatsby quite literally comes apart in this sequence.

Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom thus form a romantic triangle. But the two men are actually involved in another such intimate entanglement. Gatsby and Tom are both having an affair with a lower-class woman from Queens (played beautifully by Isla Fisher). "Affair" might be too strong a word. She's not much more than a prostitute to the men. But because of Fisher's resonant performance, this character takes on real depth of feeling. Yes, she's a floozy, but what's underneath the manic partying is a desperate yearning to escape the gutter to which she knows she and her husband are doomed.

Even her husband takes on emotional weight in the story. Played superbly by Jason Clarke, this character's black hole of a life becomes part and parcel of what Luhrmann and Fitzgerald are trying to explore. Even though the character doesn't have much screen time, he has a major scene in the end that is memorable. His rage, furthermore, leads to the story's violent crescendo and the death of a major character. (I won't tell you who.) In several ways, this character serves as a turning-point in the story.

Sometimes one feels during the film that there are too many characters. But that very multiplicity is also a strength. Every nook and cranny of the film is teeming with life, each character with a unique vantage point through which one may contemplate America.

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There are about 25 other things I'd like to say about this film, but I can't go on forever. I'll end with this:

Luhrmann four or five times draws attention to the fact that his source material is a beloved novel. Several of the book's most elegiac, unique and profound sentences appear on the screen -- the actual words appear, as Maguire reads them in voice-over narration. They appear for a moment and then float away, as if Luhrmann were blowing them out like a candle.

I found these moments sublime. A filmmaker as much in love with books as movies. Almost all true artists are passionate about several art forms, not just their own, but rarely do they share this with us. Luhrmann of course is interested in the book because of its extraordinary contents. But a part of his appreciation lies in the form in which that artistry is delivered. Its book-ness, if you will. The look of the words on the page, the feel of the paper in your hand, the smell of it. (Have you ever flipped through a book, looking at all the words, and felt a surge of ecstasy, just over its glorious book-ness?)

Because this words-on-the-screen technique is used mostly at the end of the film, one walks out of the theater with it fresh in the mind. I walked out picturing Luhrmann as a young man reading "Gatsby" for the first time. There he is, college student with a difficult novel in his hands, drinking in its best sentences, overwhelmed at the moments when, in one sentence, the 25-year-old Fitzgerald simultaneously captures the warm, gushing power of love and the cold, merciless power of death.

It's moments like these, when reading a great novel, that turn a boy into an artist.

All these decades later, the middle-aged Luhrmann still remembers those sentences, what they meant to him and how they changed his life. That's a small part of his landmark adaptation of this novel that everyone said would be un-adaptable. I'm fairly confident that a good number of boys who see this film will feel themselves turning into artists as a result. Thank you, Baz Luhrmann, for passing it on to the next generation.

There are shades of greatness in the last 30 minutes, but Luhrmann's take on ''The Great Gatsby'' is so bombastic and hyper that it leaves you cold.