A Review of Sorts: The Great Gatsby

* if you haven't read or seen either, I might give away the ending, so readers beware.

A Review of Sorts: The Great Gatsby

Hannah L Wickline

5/17/13

 

As we got up from our seats in the theater, none of us said a word. I am not sure if it was a little relational awkwardness, the late hour, or just the weight of the movie itself. But after such a story as The Great Gatsby, I didn’t know if I felt like talking about it or just getting in my car and having a good cry on the way home. (I chose the latter.)

     As a lover of books more than movies, I find it necessary to have a book fresh in my mind if I am going to watch the theatrical rendition. Thus, I read The Great Gatsby just 3 days prior to seeing the movie. [I may have read it in high school, but I cannot fully remember. I know I remember Daisy and the yellow car and the accident.] Generally, I have a strong dislike for a book turned movie as they often take liberties that make me question why they think they can write the story better than the original author. This production did not give me that feeling. The flashy lights and sparkling dresses at the parties were just as I had pictured them. I am open to disagreement, but I think if the book were to be a movie, and it has been made that way a few times now, this version was an exceptional interpretation.

The actors fit the characters so very well. Daisy was just perfect: her look, her sad yet hopeful eyes, her voice and charm. I appreciated Mr. Maguire as Nick, but his voice was a little lacking for me in the narration. And who better to play Gatsby than old Leo. He fits that time period and crazy/hopeful character to a tee.

One of the things I was most excited about was the soundtrack. I had heard that Jay-Z produced it and knew it would be fabulous. I am a sucker for many things and Jay-Z is one of them for reasons I really do not know. The soundtrack was indeed as I suspected. Fabulous. I love movies with modern music, but set in time periods past. The cross over of life and ideas just seems so right.

My favorite thing, which I was able to notice having read the book just a few days before, was the adhesion to the original text and the script that came across the screen from time to time. The first and last lines and Daisy’s feelings about being a fool were all word for word the same. The graphic description of the accident from the book was very accurately portrayed, chest gash and all. This made the movie for me. If they had strayed from those classic and steadfast lines, I think I would have all together disliked the movie.

As for the story itself, at times when I read the book I was a little confused on characters and who was speaking to whom. For some reason, I got confused on if Jordan was a man or a woman at one point. The movie made these things clear. Having seen the movie I now have a more clear understanding of all the happenings and goings on.

The Great Gatsby is a very small window into the possibility of a time that was. A time that was roaring with who knows what. If this story could have been true, I do not know, but I am glad that it was fictionalized for the generations to come. It is depressing and heart wrenching and beautiful. When I left the theater I felt as though a truck had hit me, much like the yellow car.

It is a story of love and lust and how those two things can and cannot exist together. A story of love of self and temporary pleasure wrapped around a man that hoped so much in a love of past that he bought a house and built it around an idea; a question of the possibility of loving two people, albeit differently, but simultaneously. The love was right, but the timing was off. The timing was right, but the love was off. The parties were grand and the building spectacular, but the hole in their hearts couldn’t be filled.

     It is not a story of redemption, which is what we are often looking for. But a story of an unpleasant reality of what happens when we work to control our circumstances focusing purely on self and temporary desire. Gatsby’s intentions may have at times even been noble, but his identity and idea of life were just that, ideas. He had not built a life based on truth and what really is. The green light flashed across the bay and gave him an ever-growing hope in something he had no control over. When the green light became reality, his world spun out of control leaving him floating face down in a swimming pool pondering what could have been.

     Overall, both book and movie offer quality entertainment and thought provoking storyline. Could it have been real? I don’t know. But it is interesting to ponder the ideas presented thus.