The Great Gatsby

There’s a good reason the decade was named the Roaring Twenties.  The economy was booming, money was flowing, and people wanted to have a good time.  This isn’t the first film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, but from its first trailers this year’s The Great Gatsby looked to be a very formidable adaptation.

The film stars Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby.  Baz Luhrmann, who was behind films such as Australia and Moulin Rouge, helms the project as director.  Like the novel it’s based on, the film is set in the height of the booming 1920’s and focuses on the rich and famous.  Maguire’s character plays an upstart stockbroker who has recently moved to New York who just happened to move into an old groundskeepers cottage right next to Jay Gatsby.  No one really knows much at all about Gatsby other than he’s filthy rich and throws the most marvelous party you can imagine every weekend.  Not surprisingly, it turns out there’s more to Jay Gatsby than meets the eye.

Casting really could not have been done better.  DiCaprio is the perfect fit for the golden boy Gatsby.  He effortlessly exudes the quiet confidence and endless determination that make Jay Gatsby a character you want to succeed.  Tobey Maguire hasn’t found much solid footing since his Spiderman days, but this role suits him fairly well.  The same naïve awkwardness that made fans fall for Peter Parker suites Nick Carraway very well.  Joel Edgerton, who plays Carraway’s bilionaire playboy cousin, pulls off the difficult feat of portraying the perfectly stereotypical philandering jock without it coming off as just a stereotyped character.

The only technical complaint is directed towards the many driving scenes.  The Duesenbergs look nice but there was a definite overuse on computer generated imagery as they zip through the city.  This surely seems like a minor point but it is very distracting every time it happened.

It’s hard to judge films with non-original stories.  Normally, the story a film tells plays a huge role in determining the audience’s reaction.  Should you judge these films based on how well they represent the original work?  In the case of The Great Gatsby, the film is definitely a worthy adaptation, but the story told by the original work really isn’t all that great.  Films don’t have to have happy endings but you need to tread cautiously if the victory cup goes to those the audience despise.