Review of The Great Gatsby (2013) by Jasonbowden1000 — 12 Oct 2013

Easily superior to both the 1974 and 1949 films, a gaudy, fast, noisy, overloaded, gorgeously detailed style matches the novel's smashed up atmosphere of distortion and excess. Convincing performances from the entire cast render characters more lifelike than the novel.

While it could be a perfect film, the director created a blemish by making the story Romeo and Juliet, when it is meant as Don Quixote. The almost cubist, many-sided Gatsby is more than a schmoozing opportunist because of his capacity for illusion that's what makes him "great" leaving him more than a little absurd in the emerging modernist world.

He can't see that his earnest, midwestern, pioneering spirit now reaches for something fundamentally careless, insincere, and artificial, like Daisy Buchanan; this movie wrongly gives the impression of tragically unconsummated mutual devotion.

While the forest is missed for the trees, this is still a very very fun movie, especially the mashed up styles in the soundtrack.