The so-so Gatsby

No one would ever accuse Baz Luhrmann of subtlety. His Great Gatsby, like all of his films, is about as subtle as a Looney Tunes cartoon, and it’s really up to you whether this approach fits your idea of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary creation.

But what am I saying? Only a handful of Luhrmann’s audience will have bothered to read The Great Gatsby, even though it’s only a couple hundred pages long and is told in a singular first-person voice that young people of any generation would have no difficulty relating to: Nick Carraway, the book’s narrator, speaks with just the tone of world weariness and cynicism and hidden hope for romantic things that any generation’s young people do, or should. That’s what makes it a classic.

Luhrmann clearly marches to the Dr. Dre Beats of a different drummer though, and that bizarre syncopation in his head might be the reason his mega-budget 3D version of Gatsby goes kablooey in so many bizarre, and yet diverting, ways. Here’s a guy who’s not afraid to pander to youth with every directorial decision: 1920s period music, or a hip-hop soundtrack for Gatsby? Not even a serious question! It’s got to be bling-bling-bling and remixed Lana Del Ray and Jay-Z music pumping wall to wall. ‘Cause that’s the way the Lost Generation rolled, y’all.

That approach was taken to (unintentionally comic) extremes in Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, which felt like Toulouse-Lautrec had taken acid and vomited across the screen in machine-gun bursts. He’s no less excessive in Gatsby, but in a way you’ve got to hand it to him for keeping the soundtrack audience in mind: kids will buy this stuff, a lot more of them than will buy Fitzgerald’s book, or actually read it. They will watch the movie because it has Leo DiCaprio in it, and listen to the soundtrack because they are young. So who am I to wag a finger at young people’s predictable cultural habits? Especially when you have Baz Luhrmann so eager to feed those habits?

But there are moments, watching this movie, when you think wistfully about “what might have been.” If the director was not totally ADHD and didn’t pace his scenes with Tourette’s-like explosions, maybe he could have had something here. Or if he bothered to tone down the fake-looking glitz of his scenery, which blends weirdly with the CGI until you feel like you’re looking at one of those 3D pop-up books. There’s just not a moment in the movie that strikes you as having any connection with reality.

Watching the first 20 minutes, I was struck by how ridiculous Fitzgerald’s measured prose sounded, coming out of the mouths of Tobey Maguire (Nick) and Carey Mulligan (Daisy). Someone once said that master thespian Laurence Olivier could bring people to tears just by reading a phonebook; comedian Steve Martin later claimed he could make people laugh by reading a phonebook (the trick arrow through his head helped). In The Great Gatsby, it’s amazing how the voices of Nick and Daisy and Jay Gatsby that live comfortably in your head while reading the book become totally shanghaied by Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny and Foghorn Leghorn. Great prose, reduced to Looney Tunes delivery: one more reason to lament Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby.

This may sound like I can find nothing worth praising in Gatsby. Well, there are the costumes. From Gatsby’s impeccable pink suits to the snazzy attire of every single partygoer at Gatsby’s big parties, Baz’s wife Catherin Martin is sure to get an Oscar for making it all look good. And there are many breathtaking compositions — long shots of Jay and Daisy that conjure up the era beautifully — but these are offset by endless fireworks going off or bodies of floozies flying through the air in slow motion.

And let’s just mention that DiCaprio and Mulligan have a bit of chemistry. Whenever they’re onscreen together, it feels for a moment that the wacky scenery and sonic cacophony will all fall away, and the movie will just focus on two people and their emotions. But it never does. Luhrmann has pushed all his chips onto the “Over The Top” square, and it’s too late to pull ‘em back. Maguire is adequate as Nick Carraway, meaning he’s as wide-eyed and catatonic as he usually is. But it was an artistic mistake to tack on a bookend subplot about Carraway “writing” The Great Gatsby in a sanatorium. It feels like a fake Citizen Kane homage (especially with Gatsby uttering “Daisy…” as he slumps backward into the swimming pool). Plus it adds 15 extra minutes to a movie that’s already way too long.

But mostly, it’s anachronism piled on anachronism, excess packed atop excess. You feel like the director has a morbid fear of empty space (Is he part Filipino, by any chance?). Spectacle is his strong suit, not drama. He doesn’t direct so much as he twitches and spasms: in scene after scene — whether it’s Jay Gatsby shouting at Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgarton), or Daisy nervously declaring they should all go for a drive — the dramatic moment is not allowed to develop naturally, it just shoots up off the screen like a released Moët cork. 

There’s a line where Nick says, “But you can’t repeat the past,” and Leo raises a roguish eyebrow and says, “Of course you can, Old Sport.” Clearly, Luhrmann is in no way interested in repeating the past. He wants to obliterate the past with this movie, render it twitching and insensate. You might as well burn the book after watching this movie. You won’t be able to get the cartoon voices out of your head.

This “scorched earth” tendency in Luhrmann’s work has always been there, but it’s gotten more ruthless. If you had asked a bunch of high schoolers who had just watched his Leo-starring Romeo+Juliet what the point of Shakespeare’s play was, they would probably totally get it. I’m not sure the same could be said of his Great Gatsby. Does Fitzgerald’s message come through? Will young people feel the poignancy of a moment of love lost forever? Or does today’s audience, buried in an avalanche of Luhrmannia, simply feel the beats thump on, caught up in the pop current, borne senselessly into a careless, mindless future?