The haunting tones of Lana del Ray's "Young and Beautiful" surmise perfectly the hopeless and hedonistic emotion that forms the backbone of both F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920's written masterpiece and Baz Luhrmann's 2013 filmic adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby'. The question "will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?" echoes on the lips of all the characters in Fitzgerald's novel, as we are presented with a portrait of characters who are in the very spoils of youth, filling their young days with parties, designer labels, alcohol, burning romances, fast cars and all of the luxuries money can buy. Yet the characters are forever aware of the inevitability of the future, the ceaselessness of time, and the constant desperation to cling to the past.
Perhaps no other character exemplifies this in either the book or the film than Daisy Buchanan, the beautiful young woman who captivates any man or woman with her songful voice and eyes that gaze upon you like you are the only one in the world who matters.
She is a particularly intriguing character, someone who is eternally loving and in love with being in love, yet also undisputedly shallow, unloving and desperate to live the rich American dream. Carey Mulligan has natural qualities of Daisy in her perfect balance of daintiness and strength and captures her light and tuneful voice. Mulligan's Daisy is complex and romantic, at times giddy and deliriously happy, at others darkened and tormented by fears of the future and ghosts of the past.
Luhrmann's entire cast have been perfectly chosen for this film, and all actors give terrific performances in their roles. Particularly impressive is Toby Maquire as Nick Carraway, embodying Nick's simple nerdy elegance, slight awkwardness and almost disbelief that anyone would want to invite him to one of their parties. Isla Fischer as Myrtle at first seemed inappropriate as Fischer is too beautiful in real life to play a slightly vulgar and buxom mistress. However she does portray Myrtle as a woman bored and listless in her loveless marriage, desperate for Tom's affections and promises to give her a better future very well and it is her desperate demise that marks the end of the careless days of youth and brings the story to its sobering conclusion. Joel Edgerton who plays Tom Buchanan is simply sublime in the film. He plays a fantastically powerful and lustful man who is a wayward husband, has a weakness for women and hatred for Gatsby, but who is yet deeply sensitive and protective of Daisy. He is possessive and mean but somehow fragile and Edgerton portrays this marvellously. The hardest of all shoes to fill are the polished, mahogany dress shoes of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is a unique leading man in the book. His mannerisms are cool, calm and collected. He is mysterious and hides his true identity beneath his pastel suits and manifestations of "Old sport". Some might argue that Leonardo Dicaprio does not get the opportunity to demonstrate his terrific acting ability in the role of Gatsby, however he in fact does an excellent job of self-containing the excitement about to erupt from Gatsby and makes his violent outburst to Tom Buchanan all the more impacting because of the understated cool with which he portrays Gatsby throughout the film. Dicaprio is at times extremely comedic in his portrayal of Gatsby like a love-struck teenager, and at times menacing, brilliantly hinting at the ruthless character who underpins all of Gatsby's actions. He displays a flash of anger in his eyes that suggests there might be something true in the stories about Gatsby's past and that he may very well have been capable of killing a man. Dicaprio oozes with natural glamour and elegance and brilliantly portrays someone who is teetering on the edge of violence and belies a man who would be capable of any underhanded crimes in the crazed pursuit of lost love.
Luhrmann's film remains extremely faithful to Fitzgerald's novel throughout, from everything to scenery, set pieces, clothing choice and script. The biggest alteration, however, is the music. Instead of 20's new-age American jazz, we get the popular singers of our time to provide the soundtrack to the raging parties. Artists like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, the aforementioned Lana del Ray, Gotye and Will.I.Am provide the musical heartbeat of the film. The music may be anachronistic but it exemplifies the feeling of the times. 20's jazz may not stir up a sense of anything but nostalgia and echoes of a time gone by if we were to hear it now. But songs like Will.I.Am's "Bang Bang" are as catchy and synonymous with partying and extravagance as jazz would have been in Gatsby's day and show that the events of the film are as relevant today as ever before. Even the 20's fashion of the film is making a comeback in our 2013 culture and women and men alike are yearning after beaded headdresses, feather gowns and pastel suits.
Much like the book, Luhrmann's film adaptation is arguably simply not about very much. But the quality of the acting and the relevance of the story are simply mesmerising. At the end of the film you are left feeling very much in doubt of the security and purpose of our own lives. As the film reaches it's dramatic conclusion it becomes soberingly clear how trivial material things are and how little they truly make us happy. Some might question why we should care about a bunch of rich kids from America squandering their money and their marriages while not assuming responsibility for anything. But the truth is that they are like many of us in many ways. There is, arguably, a bit of Gatsby in all of us: someone who doesn't want to let go of the past; someone who wants to be successful; someone with vanity and yearning for expensive things and someone who simply wants to love and be loved.
Like many films today, The Great Gatsby is a half-hour too long, which gives it a slight lull in the middle where the film drops pace. However, the film is stylistically superb. Despite at times feeling like an amateur film student production, once you give yourself up to the idiosyncracy of the camera shots and the excessive use of CGI, you can lose yourself in the elegance of the film. The green light at the end of Daisy's dock is as haunting and significant in the film as it is in the book, the mist surrounding the light wonderfully balances how near and yet how unreachable Daisy's world is to Gatsby. The unsufferable heat of the fatal night of the accident is brilliantly portrayed, the room feels stuffy as temperatures and tensions rise. Dr. Eckleberg's ever-seeing eyes feel as ominous and claustrophobic as the book and produce the uneasy feeling that we are being judged too as we sit back and judge the characters in the story.
The film ends with the same poetic words as Fitzgerald's novel as we watch the mist rise over Daisy's dock and the ever pulsing green light becomes clearer with the realisation that the past Gatsby dreams of could never have lived up to his ceaseless expectations. The weight of Gatsby's dream was too much for Daisy to bear and when the mystery clears, the green light was just a green light and it will continue to flash without her, much as the world will continue to beat on without Gatsby in it. This is not a definitive adaptation, there will be many more to come and many more flashing green lights to be embodied and metamorphisised on the silver screen. But it is a faithful, well-acted, luxurious and subtly addictive adaptation and a good excuse to put on a pair of silk gloves and reach for the novel again.
