Review of The Great Gatsby (2013) by Oscar D — 16 Mar 2015

THE GREAT GATSBY - is a film that embraces the phrase; style over substance. It truly is remarkable in a technical and fashionable way; the elegant parties that displays full usage of fur, wool, booze and not to mention the beat-driven music from today's most popular musical artists.

It's all set up, a movie that puts up all fronts and no empathy for its characters. The cast looks delicate in those fancy tuxedos and elaborate dresses worn during a boring Sunday afternoon in a sun-lit living room with nothing to do, like a table filled with your grandmother's china, beautiful and elegant to look at but unreasonable, in a sense that it hasn't been used nor will it ever be used.

The only character, and it's quite self-explanatory given the title, that has any depth is none other than that of Gatsby himself. Leonardo Dicaprio has done some pretty decent roles in the past couple of years; I have never seen a role that he hasn't been fully committed too.

Take for instance, the Wolf of Wall Street, Leo plays a corrupted broker who gets involved in the notion that if you have lots of money, lots of cocaine, lots of sex and lots of yachts that you have fully lived the American dream.

It's a hard character to root for but Leonardo finds every possible way for the viewer to feel somewhat empathetic towards the character during a distressed situation. He plays almost the same character in the Great Gatsby but instead of instigating the others to fall prey to immorality; he plays a character that is unreachable or distant.

His character is ten times less crazy of a man in Wolf of Wall Street but when his shell cracks, the breaking point of his pent up anger, his whole demeanor changes and we've come to see the works of Leonardo Dicaprio yelling at the top of his lungs.

Leonardo Dicaprio is quite convincing as Gatsby which is what saves the film from a total misfire. Tobey Maguire's performance was, on the other hand, unbelievably dull. Not a single moment of his onscreen presence did I feel that he was connected with his character; maybe it's his lines, maybe his tone but I feel like I have seen Tobey Maguire act better in other films such as Cedar House Rules or even the first two Spidermans.

He was a miscast. His acting didn't quite sell the character at all. The character was supposed to be curious and calculated; instead it felt bored and monotone. The other cast members did what they could with the lines that they had and they were for the most part watchable.

Overall the film's back story didn't compensate the visual effects. The funny thing is the book was like that too; overly descriptive of what the early 1900s'were wearing, their sense of style, cars, expensive wine, their mistresses and those corrupted government officials tipping at a strip club.

I didn't particularly hate or loved the book and I felt the same way about this film adaption as I left the theaters. It served the book justice, but if it had strayed away from the parties and focused on developing their characters than I would've been more engaged with the outcome.