CFN – I desperately wanted to love Gatsby. I really did. So did the mostly female and older audience who sat in the dark theatre with myself and my companion and watched it.
No, that’s The Aviator.
No, that’s Titanic…
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gatsby is a mix of Jack and Howard with very few redeeming qualities in Baz Lurhrmann’s Gatsby. I could almost hear an echo of one producer suggesting Kate Winslet for Daisy while another said she was too old. Carey Mulligan, whom I adore as an actress, does her best with Daisy, but sadly her character didn’t go the full Zelda. The character simply wasn’t fleshed out enough.
Daisy and Jay are not hero and heroine. Frankly nobody was. Even Tobey Maguire as the alcoholic impotent voyeur
isn’t. That’s missing from a lot of stories these days. I think where Gatsby failed for me is that it never really picks up the desperation and dirtiness of the Roaring 20’s. It’s almost cartoonish. It was all too sanitized and music video clean and was moving too slickly.
It was almost like the movie was being digested instead of viewed. And in the end the honest bad guy wins instead of the ones that were lying to each other which was one of the story points that truly rang true.
Is Gatsby a bad movie? No. I enjoyed it overall. Could it have been better or different? Yes, but that could be said about a lot of movies. It’s about expectations and that’s what failed for me having seen the trailers and read the press.
I was really looking forward to seeing Gatsby and not sure my $40 for two with popcorn, water, candy were good value. Gatsby though is a movie that should be seen on the big screen with good sound.
I give Gatsby 2 bags of popcorn out of 5. I probably should have given it a three; but our local Galaxy theatre kinda sucked last night service wise as well here in Cornwall so I’m a grumpy reviewer, and paying $40 to watch commercials before the flick also isn’t fair dinkum.
I loved the Sunset Boulevard tribute shot at the end 🙂
What did you think of Gatsby? You can post your comment below.
as the original “modern” novel, Fitzg’s characters were not fleshed out on purpose; modernism being a kind of revolution against romanticism. maybe the movie producer’s were trying to do the same thing (?)
haven’t seen it