On general release

Baz Luhrmann / Australia/USA / 2013 / 142 min

Reunited with his one-time Romeo, Baz Luhrmann and Leonardo DiCaprio bring to dazzling motion F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic tale of love and obsession. In 1920s New York, fresh-faced bondsman Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) moves into a humble abode amongst the newly wealthy residence of Long Island, across the bay from his cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and her husband Tom (Joel Edgerton). Carraway’s neighbour is the enigmatic and charismatic Gatsby (DiCaprio), who while famed for throwing extravagantly lavish parties that attract the cream of the Big Apple’s socialites, himself remains somewhat a mystery. Gatsby and Carraway strike up a friendship, but is Gatsby more interested in the elusive Daisy?

One memorable aspect of Fitzgerald’s novel is his colourfully descriptive language, peppering Luhrmann’s version through Carraway’s omnipresent narration; imparting Fitzgerald’s visceral imagery of Carraway’s outsider’s eye on Gatsby’s world of profligacy. Like with Moulin Rouge, Luhrmann’s stylised visuals course through the story, spilling out of the screen in an orgy of colour when depicting people’s excess but clouding over with threatening gloom for scenes of a more sinister intensity. As Gatsby and Daisy’s covert affair becomes increasingly embroiled, the once morally outraged Carraway allows his ethical belief in fidelity to slacken, partly out of affection for Daisy but more so because of his infallible belief in Gatsby.

Caraway’s rose-tinted view of Gatsby, mirrors the roaring twenty’s society; oblivious of the financial sector’s bad practices and believing the good times could never end. This heady exhilaration before the Wall Street Crash, chimes with the attitudes of the pre-2008 banking community, gorging themselves on an economic bubble of excess. While the image of Gatsby represents American Dream ideology – building himself up from nothing –Fitzgerald’s text is more cynical. They way Gatsby acquired his wealth and his struggle to control it point instead to the American Dream being more of a delusion. This is confirmed through Gatsby’s consuming fixation on always doing the best, whether romantically or financially, being ultimately to his detriment.

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