The Great Gatsby

It's taken me a while to get around to writing this review of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, largely because I forgot I'd seen it rather than because of any other factor. I'm not sure if the forgettable aspect is a review in itself, but I wouldn't say so: it's not a forgettable film in itself.

A bit of background first: I teach The Great Gatsby at A Level and have done for the last three years. The first time I read it, I didn't get it and thought it would be yet another book I disliked teaching (see my review of Iqbal for exactly how much I dislike most texts I teach). However, after re-reading it with my teacher hat on and then teaching it, I realised how well-written it was and what a thoroughly stunning little book it was. Since then I've loved reading and teaching it, perhaps because I've completely fallen for Gatsby as a man despite the fact that if he really existed, you'd totally give him a slap and tell him to get over Daisy because she's a self-centred little madam. In fact, the only downside to this book is how terrible the film adaptations are. Whilst Robert Redford is a pretty good Gatsby, the camera work and music is so stickily sentimental that it completely ignores the frankly hideous characters Fitzgerald has populated his work with. I don't want Gatsby and Daisy to be together because she'll destroy him; that adaptation tries to make them into some kind of archetypal love story.

Luhrmann's work is also pretty tied up with my teaching, as every year I drag some year 10s through a comparison between Romeo and Juliet and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (I assume the + sign is a key part in making this totally postmodern). Apart from that, Moulin Rouge  has been a favourite film for many a year, even if it is a completely trippy experience. Therefore a coupling of Luhrmann and Gatsby seemed a pretty fair thing.

The film has received some criticism for being too shallow and for not capturing the spirit of the novel. When adapting any book, directors always have to compete with people's perceptions of the characters, and The Great Gatsby is an iconic book for many people. I have to admit that I wasn't fully convinced by the casting Leonardo diCaprio, and even after seeing the film, he still lacked something about Gatsby for me; he was a little too erratic and ruthless for me. Perhaps if it weren't for Mark Kermode, this would have been a deal breaker for me.

I dip in and out of Kermode's reviews as he can be a bit over the top. However, I caught his review of this film where he stated it needed to be viewed not as The Great Gatsby but as A Great Gatsby, and this switch of determiner, for me, helped to see the film differently. diCaprio wasn't my Gatsby, but he was a Gatsby, the sort of Gatsby who would tackle life in such a blinkered and focused way. My vision of Gatsby would likely not have had the get up and go in order to pursue Daisy so faithfully so Luhrmann and diCaprio shed fresh light upon the character for me, creating a more robust Gatsby than I had previously considered. In terms of the other characters, Tom was as brutish as expected, and Carey Mulligan's Daisy was equal parts charming, mental and thoroughly detestable. Unsurprisingly, at least for me, I loved Isla Fisher's Myrtle, as I always love Isla Fisher in anything (especially Definitely, Maybe where she has the coolest lines).

The really surprising thing for me was how much I liked the soundtrack. A Jay-Z produced soundtrack sounded like hell on earth and blasphemy all rolled into one for me, but somehow it really worked, making the film contemporary and timeless. Luhrmann has concentrated on the excessive wealth of 1920s New York and it made me realise how much this could have been updated to reflect modern attitudes. The film was shiny and glossy and very Luhrmann-esque, although its pace did drop in the second half, probably as a reflection of the book which does become much darker and slower after Daisy and Gatsby's reunion. It's hard to blame the man for sticking to his source material.

Overall, an enjoyable film and one I'd watch again at some stage.