Title: The Great Gatsby
Directed by: Baz Luhrmann
Distributed by: Warner Bros.
Release Date: May 10, 2013
Rated: PG-13
Synopsis: A Midwestern war veteran finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his millionaire neighbor. (Via IMDB)
Shaunta’s Review:
It was AGONIZING putting this movie off for so long. My daughter and I went to New York for Book Expo America, though, and decided months ago to see this one on Time’s Square. I’m so glad we did. It’s such a New York movie, and watching it right there in midtown was pretty exhilarating. Watching it with my daughter, who completely loved it, was an added bonus.
I was a little scared, because several of my friends weren’t super impressed with the movie. I’d been watching the previews for so long, I felt like I’d already seen it, and I was worried that it wouldn’t offer anything new. When I finally got into the theater to watch it, though, I was compltely entertained. The Great Gatsby was very well cast, told a classic story in a way that felt fresh, and was gorgeous to watch.
The decadence of the pre-Depression, post-WWI era was palpable. I loved the modern music, which gave the movie a similar feel to Moulin Rouge. The Dynamic between Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan was fantastic, and I thought Tobey McGuire was an excellent Nick Carraway.
I feel like possibly the people who struggle with the movie are the ones who go into it with literary expectations. Taken as is, it’s fun, raucous, and eventually thoroughly heartbreaking all on it’s own. The trouble with making a film from a book that has been well-loved for decades is that it’s nearly impossible to translate it into something the literature lovers will love as well as they loved the original. If you go into the 2013 film version of The Great Gatsby wanting something luscious, operatic, and visually stunning, you won’t be disappointed. If you go in wanting something that lives up to Fitzgerald, you might come away feeling kind of ‘meh.’
I think for me the best part of the movie was the way The Great Gatsby plays as almost a love story to New York City–and that it ends in heartbreak on that level as well. It starts out showing the city as one big party, and then peels back the layers to show it’s underside–the same way that the central story does for the main characters. That part was expertly done.
