Over course of his
career, Director Baz Luhrmann has become known for his visual eye while other aspects
of his films such has character development and structure have been regarded as
lacking. His latest outing, The Great
Gatsby, struggles to make way for a new reputation. Visually, The Great Gatsby
is eye catching to say the least but for a majority of the film’s long running
time, it feels more like a gimmick. This only helps in reinforcing that the
statement that the film is trying to make is too weak in its execution to be
effective. Even with a decent third act, The
Great Gatsby fails to be as exploitive and blunt as it wants to be due to a
lack luster middle that struggles to keep the audience interested.
The
Great Gatsby begins with an alcoholic and depressed
Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) talking to a psychologist about his experience
with a man by the name of Gatsby. As the psychologist sees that Nick is
struggling to express himself with words, he tells him to write it down due to
his interest in writing. In his story, this man named Gatsby (Leonardo
DiCaprio) seemed to be a real mystery at first as he appears to only be a
wealthy neighbor of Nicks who throws extremely extravagant parties for guest
that have no idea who he is. This all changes though when Nick is invited to
one of these parties and becomes an acquaintance of Gatsby’s.
It is hard to take your
eyes off The Great Gatsby when it
comes to visuals. Colors pop off the screen when background scenery is either
brighten or dimmed to allow for other aspects of a scene to absorb all the
attention. This is often the case when the setting is the industrial area
outside of New York City. This filthy area features very little color as heavy
gray shades dominate the background. This allows the people in the scene, in
their luxurious clothing, to stand out.
Like mentioned in the
description of the plot, there are plenty of party sequences that merely
function as attention getters. The wardrobes, the lights and the movement of
people become the main characters in these scenes. Accompanying these sequences is a very
entertaining soundtrack from artist such as JAY Z, Kanye West, Beyoncé Knowles
and Lana Del Rey. However this music only stresses the fact that these moments
have little to do with the story as they start to feel like one music video
after another.
The performances also
do nothing wrong but the problem is that they are restricted in their
effectiveness as they are given little to work with as far as dialogue and
usage. Take Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan for example. Edgerton does all that
he can with what he is given to work with and arguably could be the only thing
keeping the character from being completely dismissible. As film moved along, I
was waiting for Buchanan to become a character that would really stand out
given the direction that the plot goes in. Unfortunately, this was not case as
which does not allow Edgerton to get very far with his performance.
Unlike these supporting
roles, DiCaprio and Maguire in more leading roles are given more to work with
causing for characters that actually hold some value. If there is any one that
can take on such a legendary character it is DiCaprio. Over the past decade,
DiCaprio has made it clear that his screen presence is not just powerful but
something to admire as he truly embodies the characters he takes on. So given the mystic and grand spectrum that is
J. Gatsby, DiCaprio is perfect for the role which is made even more clear with
his performance. McGuire could also be considered as being in a leading role
but given the role and usage of the character in regards to the plot, Nick
Caraway comes off more of a supporting character. I would argue that this works
in both the films and McGuire’s advantage as the character McGuire is taking on
is the ‘fish out of water’ type, catering to his strengths.
When the visuals are
pushed to the side and the characters come to focus as a statement about power
that stems from wealth and how celebrity status accompanies it is attempted is
when The Great Gatsby runs into
problems. It seems that after all the extravagant party scenes no energy was
left to put towards the film’s central story. The pace slows down tremendously
as drawn out, unnecessary scenes fail to be any kind of interesting. This
causes for a story and statement that is stuck in neutral, giving the audience
no choice but to lose all interest. Normally soap opera dramatics hurt a film’s
effectiveness but in this case it could cause for a more confrontational
approach needed and would match the atmosphere the film presents and Lurhmann’s
style.
It takes nearly two
hours for the films attended message to finally get across as The Great
Gatsby’s third act shows real character through raw emotion and motives. Of
course all the revealing of true character motives comes into play in this
finale but this makes for tension and emotion that was absent from the first
two acts. It is not until here that both Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and Tom are
actually given some depth that turns the once dull characters into valuable
pieces of the story as they demand thought to what type of people they really
are.
These finally thirty minutes or so is where the
film is at its best but with the films long running time and lack luster middle
it is hard to whole heartily recommend it. In fact, even with the solid visuals
it would probably be a film best experienced at home. You could skip to the
films finale and still not be missing a thing if you’re looking for something
more thought engaging regarding characters. If you’re looking for more
ascetically pleasing aspects you can only explore the films party scenes or just
watch the first half.
