Warner Bros.
143 min., dir. by Baz Luhrmann, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey Mulligan

When news rang out that Baz Luhrmann was going to make a version of The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCarprio and Carey Mulligan (and in 3D, no less), people promptly began losing their shit. The prospect of one of America’s most discussed, analyzed, and loved novels getting a stylish and unnecessary glossy 3D finish excited more people than I expected. As always, I held my breath and hoped for the best, wishing that I may actually be amazed and in love with the results. While the majority consensus for the film is one of glowing applause and praise, I, once again, find myself one of the few shouting voices from the bottom of the pile calling out a message of distaste and disbelief.

Being that the story of The Great Gatsby is required reading in most schools, and so well known by even those who weren’t forced to read it, I find it prudent to skip a plot summary and jump right into my issues with this adaptation. The fact of the matter is that the story as a whole isn’t changed much from how it appears in print. The largest (and by far most egregious) error made in this area rests in the explanation of how the story is told. Nick Carraway’s narration is delivered as he resides in a psychiatric rehabilitation home, where his doctor convinces him to write about the experiences that led him there.The need to create a reason for a narration is mind-boggling to me – why tack on a completely unnecessary portion to the story that neither enhances the story’s structure or moral presence?

Further, there are two aspects of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby that push my buttons: the acting and the atmosphere. Let’s start with the former.

Now, I don’t want to simply badmouth someone’s performance and not give credit for the good they do. Tobey Maguire certainly does rein his performance during the closing sections of the film, but the first half sees him taking some of Fitzgerald’s poetic passages and turning them into hokey garble. The words discharge from his mouth like a Taco Bell-induced diarrhea explosion, eradicating the beauty behind the writer’s sentiments. DiCaprio, too, does not fare all that well at times, with his delivery of the character’s identifying “old sport” catchphrase becoming grating much too quickly. It’s not the overuse of the words, as the character is meant to say it way too frequently, but his over-pronunciation and foolish exuberance in the delivery is simply too much. His moments of character breakdowns also reach to the far edge of ridiculousness, destroying too much of the illusion. There’s an argument to be made that it’s all intentional, that his proper self is so flawed compared to his “public” image, but it never melds. The Gatsby the story first introduces may just be a facade, but the disconnection between the two faces of the man exists on such different planes here.

The Great Gatsby is supposed to be decadent, extravagant, and over-the-top throughout, yet the level Baz Luhrmann takes it to flies straight out of the atmosphere. This wouldn’t bother me if the film was made by someone other than Baz, whose traditional style is generally tame. The story is all a foil for criticizing the bastardization of the American Dream, so the partying life of the wealthy in the Roaring ’20s should be larger than life — but for a Baz Luhrmann film, it’s just life as usual. The fever dream that exists in Luhrmann’s head is commonplace now, deflating its meaningful existence in the world of Gatsby. It may be Baz’s plan to bring classics to a modern audience by pumping up a glamorous style and filling it with modern music, and doing it once is fine. However, making it a mission that overbears every aspect of every film is sad. If you feel the need to connect to a younger audience, simply update the era. Not everything needs to be manhandled to make it appeal to the current generation.

The Great Gatsby does not intend to portray its characters’ lifestyles in a purely positive light, but it’s hard not to feel that too many people who are unfamiliar with the story will walk out thinking they just watched a simple love story, or react only to the glitz and glamour of these gloriously lush lifestyles. For the longest time, people have been heading to the movies with an escapist mentality — and that’s fine if they are heading to see Transformers or something mindless — but The Great Gatsby shouldn’t be that movie. I’m not saying it should be a film that reminds people of a time that was, but it shouldn’t perpetuate something it was not.

Is The Great Gatsby a bad film? No. Does Baz Luhrmann let all the symbolism of the story lay on the back burner and care only about style? Definitely not — the story remains intact, and what I find egregiously miserable about the film stems from the larger issue of the state of film making in general. It leaves me with little else to say about Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby other than, “Meh.”

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Matthew Schuchman is the founder and film critic of Movie Reviews From Gene Shalit’s Moustache and a contributor to Den of Geek.