Baz Luhrmann, director of the good – Moulin Rouge – and the bad – Australia – remakes, unnecessarily, (especially since the original was such a bad movie and a box office bomb), the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby, for the big screen.
For the handful of people who weren’t forced to read the novella in high school, The Great Gatsby follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he leaves the Midwest and goes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz and bootleg kings. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super-rich, their lies, loves and deceits.
As Nick bears witness, within and without the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy.
The original “The Great Gatsby” was written by Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather” trilogy) and features Robert Redford, Mia Farrow and Bruce Dern.
Baz Luhrmann surely knows how to direct movies in the style of music videos. The sleek cinematography, fast editing, snappy music and colorful costumes, however, cannot cover up the lack of an interesting or captivating story.
Many will be fooled. Hopefully you won’t be.
This The Great Gatsby remake was originally scheduled to be released in theaters on Christmas Day 2012 but was pushed back a half a year, I heard, because it was a movie better suited to the summer box office than Christmas – Tim Nasson
