These are both things I’ve come across to varying effects. I want to say “it can’t be both of these things at once” but there’s an extent to which it can be, I suppose. While there are a number of critics protesting the movie’s use of Nick Carraway’s narration, there are a number who are praising it as a useful and effective device. More on that in a minute. For everyone who says the best scenes of the movie take place during Gatsby’s extravagant and excessive parties, which are full of undeniably dazzling and lively images, there are others who blast Luhrmann’s signature style as vulgar and tasteless. And so the movie takes a surprising turn for a Luhrmann work and gets quiet, deliberate, and stripped down for one noteworthy scene, and this causes some to admire the unexpected departure and others to decry the movie’s unevenness and try to argue that that scene is anything but masterfully executed. Goddamnit, you guys.
One could make the case that all the negative responses to these individual aspects could amount to someone hating the movie entirely. That’s fair, I guess. But then there would have to be a reverse case to be made that every one of them does in fact work. I guess that’s the position I’m in, though even a step further. I think this is certainly the most fulfilling visualization of the novel we’ve had to date (not a high bar to cross), and one of the most faithful yet imaginative adaptations of a classic work to be made in a longass time. It expresses the ideas in the book in a brand new way, but in a way that, after some reflection, is remarkably accurate to the source material. The characters in particular are fleshed out in a way that is truly remarkable; the one thing everyone seems to agree on, literally the one thing I can seem to find consensus around, is that Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby is about as perfect a portrayal of the character imaginable. But you’ll still see about half of reviewers saying Luhrmann doesn’t give a damn about the material and the other half saying he’s too reverent.
Continue reading on the next page…