OVP: The Great Gatsby (2013)

Film: The Great Gatsby (2013)
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Clarke
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Oscar History: 2 nominations/2 wins (Best Costume Design*, Best Art Direction*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the problems with making a movie once every six years or so is that the expectations game is stacked against you.  Remember when Kimberly Pierce spent nine years waiting to follow-up Boys Don't Cry?  The expectations game is too intense, and I think that's something that Baz Luhrmann has fallen into in recent years.  After the epic poetry of Romeo & Juliet, followed by his magnum opus Moulin Rouge!, he spent seven years in the wilderness (considering the locale of his next picture, probably literally in some cases), then made the bloated and overlong Australia.  He waited another five years and this past year came out with The Great Gatsby, which thanks to its lavish costumes and sets, is part of our OVP.

(Spoilers Ahead...though you seriously have never read this book?) The problem with the film isn't that he's taking too long, but in some ways, that Luhrmann shouldn't have this much time to make a film.  This is a director who deals with extravagance to the nth degree, and occasionally it takes away from his overall plot.  What made something like Moulin Rouge so incredible wasn't just the baller sets and the cavalcade of Nicole Kidman costumes, but it was also that there was an incredible, strong love story at the center of it, anchoring it down.  The problem with Luhrmann and The Great Gatsby is there simply isn't, and everything in this film (which, like Australia, is overlong) reflects that he doesn't really understand the book.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's movie has been called unfilmable, and I don't believe that because, barring something like the dictionary, all books are filmable.  They're plotted stories and that translates to the big screen.  When people say that something is unfilmable, what they mean to say is you cannot traditionally film the movie, which is absolutely true of this Trimalchio in West Egg.

The problem is that Gatsby seems very much like a love story, but it's of course not one, at least not one we're used to seeing.  Gatsby is in love with Daisy, and they used to be together, but Daisy is now with Tom and so Gatsby tries to win her back through extravagance and romantic gestures.  It's a pretty customary plot, except Daisy isn't worth all of these gestures.  Fitzgerald gets it-Daisy isn't worth any of this.  She's a shallow girl willing to let Gatsby take the fall for her crimes, even though all she's done throughout her life is just love him when it was convenient.  This means that the love story element never really rings true, and instead you have a story about a man misguided by obsession, a couple consumed by money and power and greed, and a narrator, possibly deceiving us by claiming to be interested in women but clearly desperately in love with the title character.

You get none of that in Luhrmann's fantasy, which, when it's not trying to get you to buy Lana del Rey songs on iTunes or showing another gigantic set or costume idea (though, particularly in the latter case, there are inspired moments like Gatsby's gorgeous pink suit) it's trying to sell, sell, sell that love story.  Maybe Luhrmann would have gained more if he was a director that deals with subtle, but he's not.  He can't do anything unless it's up to eleven, and that doesn't work with a delicate tale like Gatsby.  Perhaps one of the reasons no one responds well to this book being filmed is that the only two major forces to attach themselves to the project are Luhrmann and Francis Ford Coppola, another figure not known for the breezy touch.  These two men are excellent filmmakers, but you need to give them a source material suited for what they are tackling.  In this case, you need someone who will draw out the homoerotic nature of Nick's relationship with Gatsby, the fact that Gatsby is a misguided fool, and that Daisy may well love Tom more than Gatsby, but cannot completely betray her schoolgirl fantasy.  That's a movie-a pretty great one-but you need someone who doesn't get distracted by the romantic gestures and all of that aesthetic symbolism.

It's also worth noting, and I got into an argument with a friend about this but it's true-the cast is far too old to be playing this part.  Leo DiCaprio would have made a superb Jay Gatsby...ten years ago.  The same can be said for Tobey Maguire and Nick.  DiCaprio, now at almost forty, is still quite beautiful in the way Gatsby is supposed to be, but a courser, guy of about forty beautiful, and can no longer convincingly play a man consumed by love without any sort of reservation.  Maguire is also far too old to be learning such basic lessons about the ways of the world.  Carey Mulligan is the only one of the four leads who is remotely age appropriate for the film, but Mulligan's not great with whispy characters-she needs someone with a bit of spine to sell it.

We'll be getting into the costumes and art direction in a few weeks when we tackle the 2013 OVP (we'll be doing quite a bit more of the 2009 OVP this weekend), but until then-what did you think of Luhrmann's latest?  Do you agree that it was a mess, or was it a mess that you could love?  And would you have doubled Catherine Martin's Oscar count?  Share in the comments!