The Great Gatsby

When you're 29 and single, you go on a lot of first dates.  Well, a few.  Actually, it's been a while.  God I'm lonely...  Anyway, on these rare dates, the dinner conversations vary in subject but usually involve movies.  You can tell a lot about a girl by what movies she likes.  I've been caught many times scoping out a girl's DVD collection. There was this one zookeeper who had only Disney VHS's and Colin Farrell movies.  Also, did I mention she had four cats and they were all named after Colin Farrell characters?  Yeah, I got out of there fast.  To be fair, I'm sure I've scared off a few women with my large collection of slasher movies.  Their loss.

Still, I've made plenty of connections based on shared love of a director or star.  There was one girl who actually liked Dolph Lundgren movies.  I probably should have married her.  Oh well.  When I ask most of my dates what their favorite film is, I hear a few answers repeated, again and again.  There's the inevitable How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.  I get that one.  McConaughey is 100% beefcake.  Love, Actually?  Great romantic comedy.  Pretty in Pink? Molly Ringwald is my girl.  There is one film, however, that sends me running: Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge.

I saw Moulin Rouge when I was in high school.  At that time, I was involved in a lot of musical theatre, so I went with the flow and did my best to enjoy the film.  Seriously, a musical theater high schooler saying he doesn't like Moulin Rouge is like a film Master's student saying he can't stand the work of Stanley Kubrick.  Don't worry, I love Kubrick.  Now that I'm out of high school and not singing Rodgers and Hammerstein anymore, I can admit how I feel about Moulin Rouge.  It's ugly, garish, and poorly made.  The visuals give me a headache and the popular song mash-ups give me a wicked vertigo attack.  Following up Moulin Rouge with the even worse Australia cemented Baz Luhrmann as my least favorite working director.

I tried my best to go into The Great Gatsby with an open mind.  I suppose that's every critic's challenge— to go see a movie you don't want to see and look at it as objectively as possible.  Well, I'm shocked.  This gaudy gem of excess is Luhrmann's worst film yet.  Who thought to greenlight this film?  Asking Baz Luhrmann to direct The Great Gatsby is like asking Michael Bay to direct Moby Dick.  Although, it would be cool to see The Rock as Captain Ahab and Shia Labeouf as Ishmael.  Wait, never mind.  That's a terrible idea.

As usual, Luhrmann places great emphasis on the visuals.  I won't lie; the guy can achieve some striking, beautiful images.  There is no control to these images, though. The visuals are so sugary, I'm worried I might develop diabetes.  I feel as if I just ate a five-pound bag of Reese's Pieces.  Luhrmann took the Gilded Age a bit too literally, so everything shines and glitters like some priceless metal.  The majority of the film is also shot in soft focus, probably to give it a Classic Hollywood aesthetic.  This effect grows old quickly and makes the eyes heavy.  I didn't fall asleep, I swear.

How could I fall asleep?  The film is so loud.  The images are loud and the music is loud.  Instead of using original musical pieces from the 1920s, Luhrmann's employs more of his beloved mash-ups.  The techno version of the Jitterbug is true cacophony.  The soundtrack is atrocious and filled with contemporary Rap music.  In an attempt to be hip, Luhrmann sabotages his audience's immersion into the film.  These modern songs are so jarring, I felt kicked out of the story.  I declare, watching flapper girls dance the Charleston to Kanye gives me an anachronistic headache.

As in his other films, Luhrmann seems to have more of an interest in sights and sounds than character and narrative.  From the first frame of the film, the acting is stilted and flat.  Tobey Maguire, who can be quite decent when directed well, turns in a poor performance.  His voiceover and narration are laughable and are made all the worse by the fact that he is reading from Fitzgerald's book.  I'd rather hear Kevin James read James Joyce.  Well, maybe not.  Joel Edgerton, an actor of great skill, is wasted in the film.  He barks and drinks and plays a really bad guy.  Even Carey Mulligan is disappointing.  The actress I loved in Never Let Me Go and Drive plays a boring, doe-eyed Daisy.  It's very embarrassing.

Leonardo Dicaprio does his best to fill Gatsby's shoes.  Physically, he looks the part, with seersucker suit and swept back hair.  If the film were silent, it might be believable.  However, once Leo opens his mouth, it all falls apart.  As usual, Dicaprio is very intense, but this doesn't work for Fitzgerald's titular character.  I don't remember Gatsby yelling and crying in the book, but he sure does a lot of both here.  He also finishes every sentence with "Old Sport."  True, this is part of the narrative but it becomes annoying after its fiftieth utterance.  Like Luhrmann, Dicaprio seems to be yelling, "I'm Jay Gatsby!  I live in the 1920s!"  Dicaprio's ham-fisted acting mixed with Luhrmann's ham-fisted directing makes for cinema's first ever ham-handshake.

The director luckily had a brilliant book on which to base his film.  Even when the film is ugly and laughable, it is somewhat easy to shut out the noise and just watch Fitzgerald's evocative tale.  Still, it doesn't feel like the director read the same book that I read in high school.  Luhrmann read the book and saw a tragic romance.  I read it and saw a critical look at American ambition.  The film misses a real opportunity to make the film relevant today.  Financial corruption and misled ambition are daily themes in The Wall Street Journal. However, Luhrmann draws no connection to our contemporary world.  Well, he did put the Rap music in...

There is no connection to contemporary America because Luhrmann's 1920's America isn't real itself.  Luhrmann doesn't make period pieces; he makes Science Fiction.  The amount of computer effects mixed with the over-the-top set and costume design make Gatsby feel like a Steampunk comedy.  Fitzgerald's book is a quiet book with loud ideas.  Luhrmann's film is a loud film with no ideas.   I'm sure some Luhrmann fans will enjoy this film.  I'm just saying that if a girl mentions it on a first date, I'm going to the bathroom...and sneaking out the window.