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Review: The Great Gatsby (2013)

By Christine Petralia

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

May 13, 2013



This Baz Luhrmann adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name is beautifully done. It also stays very true to the book, as previous films had not.

The version stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby and Tobey Maguire as the narrator Nick Carraway. It starts with Carraway explaining why he’s so bitter and basically hates the world and then we head back to 1922. Carraway has just moved to New York, he has a job in bonds on Wall Street and rents a small cottage in the fictional town of West Egg on Long Island. Gatsby is his neighbor, and his cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) lives across the bay in East Egg with her husband Tom (Joel Edgerton).


Carraway soon learns the secrets that Daisy’s husband holds during a trip to Manhattan. Later, he gets a personal invite from Gatsby to attend one of his lavish parties, though no one ever gets an invitation. Gatsby befriends Carraway to get closer to his old flame, Daisy. The pair dated five years earlier before he fought in the war and he is looking to rekindle their love affair.

 

As the film progresses, and Carraway gets closer to Gatsby, he essentially hides not only Tom’s affair, but Gatsby and Daisy’s too. He learns Gatsby’s backstory and who he really is. As each day passes, he gets disgusted with not only himself, but with the new friends he’s made, except Gatsby.


Everything comes to a head when Daisy and Gatsby tell Tom of their affair. However, not accordingly to Gatsby’s plan, Daisy doesn’t exactly leave Tom. On their way back from the city, Gatsby’s car hits and kills Myrtle (Isla Fisher), the woman with whom Tom was having an affair). By the time, Carraway and Tom drive through the area, they see that Myrtle has been killed and Tom tells her husband that Gatsby owns the car that hit her.

 

And well, the rest goes along with the novel. But for those who don’t know the story, I won’t spoil it.

 

Though the story takes place on Long Island’s Gold Coast, Luhrmann actually filmed in Australia. In an interview with News 12, he explained it was much cheaper to film there than in New York. Though, he did spend a few weeks on Long Island scouting out the mansions that Fitzgerald actually describes in his novel. Those homes that weren’t recreated in Australia were digitally created. And honestly, you wouldn’t even know unless someone told you that it wasn’t on Long Island. Each mansion is huge and beautifully decorated. The party scenes were incredible and really made it seem like you were there in Gatsby’s home, getting drunk and not caring about anything but having a good time.

 

And by the end, you really are just as disgusted at the Buchanan’s, and people in general, as Carraway is. I wasn’t a huge fan of Maguire in this role, but he did an OK job. DiCaprio did a pretty good job as the lovestruck, and a little disturbed, Gatsby.

I think this one is worth a trip to the theater to get immersed in the Roaring 20s and Gatsby. It might even be worth the 3-D, but that’s up to you.

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