The Great Gatsby Review

The Great Gatsby has been acclaimed has been described as one of the great American stories, and has already been adapted to screen so many times but the one director that could probably give the story a proud version is Baz Luhrmann. Good ol’ Baz has shown how he can create a pace driven extravaganza of a film like Romeo+Juliet and Moulin Rouge. However, I felt that even though Luhrmann was born to make this film, I don’t think he gave the story much justice and just made it way too long just to include the grand parties and for some reason Jay Z. 

The Great Gatsby is based on the 1920s novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, where it follows the enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his next door neighbour Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) who serves as the narrator of the whole film, trying to find his first love Daisy, who happens to be Nick’s cousin. Most of the film follows Gatsby and Nick’s blossoming friendship which seems filled with hole with Gatsby’s very mysterious nature, where the film then turns its attention to how Gatsby and Daisy (Carey Mulligan) try to rekindle their past love under the nose of Daisy’s husband and Nick’s friend Tom (Joel Edgerton). 

Throughout the film, you can tell that you are watching a Baz Luhrmann film, with its excessive filmic style where things are flying all around the screen, you sometimes struggle to be able to pay attention to the main points of the film when someone is jumping from one side of a

building to another. Having said this, I did enjoy the film stylistically with its brilliant cinematography it just oozes colour, but another main point I enjoyed about the film is the acting and the cast. With the likes of Tobey Maguire’s performance of a recovering alcoholic Carraway just shows that maybe he isn’t just Spiderman anymore. Maguire brings a very comic side to the story compared to Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Gatsby more resolved, but I don’t think Maguire is ever going to be able to shake off the Spiderman tag even though that he can put in some great performances. Also, Carey Mulligan’s performance of Daisy just shows that she will be a big player in Hollywood soon, with an Academy Award nomination already under her belt for An Education and being in great films such as Drive just shows that she will go far. But the main focus of the acting and performance for the whole film must be on Leonardo DiCaprio’s depiction of Jay Gatsby. Even though the film may not have been as successful with the critics, there is no way that you could say that DiCaprio’s performance was not great. You may go as far as to say that is Leo actually acting or is this just what he’s like, an angry guy with a mysterious past.

But there is one scene I want to focus on just to show how Leo’s performance overshadows all of the other characters in the film. Leonardo Di Caprio’s performance in The Great Gatsby seems to switch between from him being shown as a confident rich man with an evident swagger in his walk to someone who is overcome with nervousness and rage. In the scene where Jay Gatsby (Di Caprio) firsts meets Daisy, the transition is shown when the regularly cool Gatsby is shown herding a group of men with flowers to bombards Nick Carraway’s (Tobey Maguire) ahead of his reunion with his early love Daisy. We see the usual suave and sophisticated Gatsby turn to what could be described as a nervous wreck by constantly checking the time and rearranging his suit, this shows how Di Caprio has played the character in a nervous way. Also the audience gets the sense that Di Caprio can actually pull off the idea of him playing a character who is also playing a character within the film, as he immerses himself into the character of Gatsby. The audience gets the idea that something isn’t actually fine with the character as a whole as it seems that he can slip into a nervous wreck in a heartbeat.  Di Caprio’s performance of Gatsby is heightened through the use of his voice and how he address’ other characters, with the use of the catchphrase ‘old sport’. Throughout the sequence we get the idea that he was shown to be nervous through the stumbling of his own words when he tries to speak to Daisy, compared to the beginning of the sequence speaking to Carraway. The facial expressions performed by Di Caprio could be said to be quite unconventional as we got the sense of his nervousness seeping through his facial expressions. I got the idea that his face shows more of the Gatsby character than his costume, his posture could be shown as a complete mismatch compared to his facial expressions. This performance choice gives the idea of how he is trying to stay calm by casually swooping his hair back, but this act is shattered through his face and how he stares straight, with more movement shows the chaos of the performance by Di Caprio but it shows how the character was portrayed throughout the film. The physical movement performed by Di Caprio in the sequence is probably the more expressive part of his acting in The Great Gatsby, the way he is showing the audience how his is unsure of himself and the idea that the character himself is a character also, and tries to rearrange himself to which stance and posture will suit better with the scenery shows Di Caprio’s acting abilities.   

Even though most films have to have at least good performances from their cast, I mean The Great Gatsby’s cast was really good and all of the characters were played really well, however, DiCaprio just ran the show for most of the film. However, I don’t think that the film should have just banked on Leo’s performance with the film not having a lot of substance but just crazy parties. So overall, I did enjoy the film and you can really tell that it is a Baz Luhrmann film but I felt that a lot of the film was filler until DiCaprio came on screen and the inclusion of random Jay Z songs in a film set in the 1920’s really baffled me and I think an adaption more set to the times may have been more successful. 

Moonrise Kingdom, a very strange place.

To be honest, I can say that before watching Moonrise Kingdom, I’ve only ever watched one Wes Anderson film, and that was his acclaimed The Royal Tenenbaums which I did really enjoy, but in all fairness, there is a certain point where you have to look yourself in the mirror and say ‘can I take any more of this whimsical stuff?’ Well that’s what you get whenever you sit down to watch an Anderson film. A lot of fairy-tale and whimsical stuff flying out at you from the screen and you just seem to go along with it. You could say that the main synopsis of this film is quite simple, two people who fall in love and meet up and go into a forest to spend the rest of their lives together, there’s nothing wrong here until you find out that the star crossed lovers are actually 13. Although I did enjoy the film as a whole, you kind of feel really weird when you finish the film and think, did I actually just watch a film where two thirteen year olds were half naked for at least 20 minutes of the film. At this point you realise that even though it wasn’t intended, there may be something quite wrong with this film.

However, I will continue with the plot of the film which follows young Sam, played by newcomer Jared Gilman, missing from his scout troupe and has been revealed to be an orphan and who’s leader, played magnificently by Edward Norton, goes on a hunt to be able to find him. It is revealed that Sam is running away from the scouts to be able to be with oddball Suzy (Kara Haywood) who also seems to have family troubles, with a family run by Bill Murray (but in my opinion, why would you want to run away from a family who’s run by Bill Murray?) As the story goes along, we follow how Sam and Suzy become friends and form a relationship whilst most of the scouts and the towns policeman, who is portrayed by Bruce Willis, try to track them down. All this while one of the biggest storms in the town’s history is about to hit. Although the story is shown to just be a template of a regular love story, I think the spin Anderson tries to put on it gives it more of an edge compared to other so called love stories where it tries to show that falling in love is a big thing and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

In terms of style, I believe that this has been the main focus on the productions mind as even from the first scenes of Norton patrolling his troops. You get the feel that the style is very controlled and ordered and seems to be split into three parts with the main focus on what is in the middle of the screen. This idea has been used in countless Anderson films and just adds to the whimsy to the whole picture, and we get the idea that a natural force will disrupt what happens to the characters static and ordered lives. The cinematography in this film could be said to be classic Anderson as he rarely uses cuts or transitions to move along the story but instead favouring to a tracking shot of the whole scene, also you get the sense of a very nostalgic feel to the whole film, with it being set in the 60s, we get the idea that the camera has been tinted to give the feel of a home video or a very 60s style film. Also, with the idea that kids are involved, I get the sense that it is looking back for people who may have been children at that time and the nostalgic feel to the picture is justified with the pastel colours of setting shows what the 60s may have looked like. With style, I had the impression that the style of the film was determined by what character was on screen, for example, whenever we see Sam, Suzy or Ed Norton’s character. I felt that the style was heightened to show what the character was like, as they are shown to be quite childlike but with Bill Murray’s character, the style was shown to be darker and more melodramatic to suit the character’s depressing nature.

Probably what I most enjoyed about the film is the cast, the performances from Ed Norton, Bill Murray and Bruce Willis. They just had this certain feel about it that they actually were the characters played on screen, especially with Willis’ character as audiences are usually only associate him with blockbuster action films, so it was quite a surprise to see him in quite a quirky movie like this. I think his performance suited what the character was trying to get across, which is that growing up too fast isn’t always the right thing to do and that enjoying childhood whilst you can should be praised. Now, if I was going to criticise this film in any way would be the more, shall we say romantically charged scenes between Sam and Suzy. At the time of production, the actors used to play these characters were only 12 years old, and for some reason, Wes Anderson thought it would be a good idea to have them to be half naked for at least 20 minutes of the film and have them kiss numerous times whilst Sam ‘cops a feel’. I’m not saying that its perverted in any way but it may seem a bit seedy to people who actually haven’t watched the film, like if I showed a random person that 20 minutes, they would want Wes Andersons’ head on a pike but in the context of the film, I suppose it isn’t too bad. I’m not saying I enjoyed that part because out of the whole film, it made me feel quite uncomfortable, with the idea that Anderson actually asked them to do this, and on film but you know, if you want to make a quirky film, you have to work with some strange people.

So overall, I did enjoy the film to a certain extent, with the films overarching style and sort of mocking pastiche of the 60s America. With the performances by some of the actors, notably Edward’s Norton portrayal of a scout leader just sort of shows that even adults still want to be like kids or how Bill Murray is just amazing as usually. Also the use of nostalgic camera movement and colours to give the feel of the 60s should be given praise but the one flaw are those really strange 20 minutes which well, just made it feel like a really strange experience. To recommend this film may seem like an odd task now by saying that there are some really bizarre moments in it but just give it a chance, you may actually think that there is a meaning to it, but I don’t really see it myself.