Review: "The Great Gatsby" does not live up to the hype

"The Great Gatsby"PG 13
     Baz Luhrmann, (Moulin Rouge, Austrialia) directs a lavish send up to F. Scott Fitzgerald's flapper era masterpiece, 'The Great Gatsby', despite it being made into a film at least half a dozen times, a stage play, and the bane of school literature classes. Leo DeCaprio plays Gatsby and Tobey McGuire plays Nick Callaway, his neighbor friend, who has a cousin named Daisy (newcomer Carey Mulligan) who Gatsby secretly loves. The trouble is that Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, the rich aristocrat across the bay from Gatsby. They live in the fictional town of West Egg. Tom is secretly having an affair with this poor man's wife in the sticks part of town. Eventually this all factors together when their worlds collide as Nick meets Gatsby at a party, one of his lavish flapper era digs in an attempt to attract Daisy, and Nick agrees to reintroduce them. Eventually someone is killed in a car accident and in the end it's the same tragedy the book was. That they got right. The movie looks like a glossed version of the book, despite the location obviously not being New York, but some other place in disguise. (Turns out it was Sydney, Australia).
     Anyone who was actually raised in the roaring 1920s likely is dead and doesn't remember much about this time period. Since my Grandmother was, I know a lot about it. They did have a prohibition against alcohol which made the mobs rich. They did have speakeasies, places to secretly get booze. The cars in the film were fairly spot on, despite a duusenberg with a breakaway glass modern windshield. (Automobiles didn't have that glass until the 1960s).
     The wigs were interesting on the actors. Ha.
     Then the jazzy music is both modern rap and modern swag, and doesn't fit. At all. The music s distracting! It pulls your right out of the party scene when something like club music blares over flatter dolls and rich fat cats. Really? Did you have to let them put rap music in it? Fine in Moulin Rouge when it was a fable, but this is kind of based on a story sent in a certain time period where you did the details well enough to suit some folks.
     During one scene, Nick and Gatsby are speeding along a highway toward the Brooklyn bridge, a geographically messed up scene, but okay if West Egg is actually very far north of Manhattan. That's not to bad though. The issue is the dialog. They're in a stick car, meaning no automatic, using a clutch and shifting the dusenberg, and for a full five minutes while driving at one point, Gatsby has his eyes right on Nick! Then he does it again! If he was driving he would have driven right off the highway and later, off the bridge into the Hudson river. Come on, Hollywood. You can't have the driver talking to the passenger like that in a car like that. Maybe in a modern car with cruise control, but not in a 1920's model. (Not a good idea in a modern car either). At least Leo gets into the part by pretending to shift the car, which is funny too because he would not be able to reach the shifter from that angle! Ha! (No wonder there was a crash later).
     The asylum wrap around part was not in the book and doesn't make sense except to bay homage to a certain other movie called Shutter Island. Why? No idea. Fitzgerald didn't go nuts, but his critics were merciless and didn't like the story. After his death it got more play as time went on. He was ahead of his time, but not in an asylum.
     The story could have been so much better if they just went for period piece Oscar bait and not for stylish over the top modern to postmodern remake.
     The director does convey the decadence and the speakeasy thing all right, but it lacked in the over all execution. He didn't seem to know if he was out to make a sobering drama or a lighthearted look at rich fat cats and shallow dames.
     And according to other sources, the french style telephone with single handle was not invented for another 8 years, and the Deusenberg J class was also from some time later, perhaps 1928.  Also the term turbo charged is probably not right either, and he likey meant super charged.
     The Chrysler building and the Empire State were not under construction yet in 1922. The matte of them is inaccurate.
     The added hip hop music is modern and doesn't feel like jazz. The original jazz was quite different. The sax player is also playing his horn backward with the wrong hand positioning.
     This might make a decent rental but it's hardly worth being 3D, and it appears the makers missed the point. Decadence isn't good. It's bad. It destroys Gatsby. He is not meant to be sympathized with. Fitgerald was ahead of his time, but this seems a step backward. Old sport.
Review by Adam Browne