Verdict: It's no mean feat attempting to translate F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel to the screen. Previous attempts have crashed and burned and this is definitely the most successful attempt thus far.
I'm going to start by mentioning the epic soundtrack. A lot of the media coverage of this film has been deservingly focused on it with Jay-Z helping an eclectic mix of current artists - highlights including Lana Del Ray's "Young and Beautiful", Florence and the Machine's "Over the Love", Sia's "Kill and Run", Will.I.Am's "Bang Bang" and Fergie's "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody". Some have complained about the bombardment of Jay-Z over proceedings being distracting. In fact I found that the soundtrack was criminally underused, with Lurrhman opting to use instrumentals of several songs instead quite often. Essentially go and grab a copy of the soundtrack NOW... you won't regret it!
The acting from the majority of the cast felt like a real strong point. Tobey Maguire's portrayal of Nick Carraway was powerful. He managed to pull off making Nick a likeable character, no mean feat given that some audience members could have found him to be vapid and weak for just standing and witnessing so much adultery without doing anything. Whilst some found the scenes tagged on at the Sanitarium cliched, I think they helped to enhance his character by showing how deeply affected he was by the events of that summer. Whilst Joel Edgerton seemed to be having a blast as the moustache twirlingly horrid Tom, the real star of the show here is Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby. Despite the fact that his mispronunciation of 'old sport' was slightly grating, he's certainly experienced at playing lovelorn men and manages to carry the air of mystery surrounding his character with ease. Carey Mulligan was likeable but her portrayal of Daisy as being wounded was slightly misconstrued given that in reality her character's a superficial bitch!
Whilst Lurhmann's directorial style shone in "Romeo and Juliet" & "Moulin Rouge", his constant bombardment of the audience with the novel's metaphors was blatant and distracting at some points (constantly panning back to the billboard... really?!). You can tell he is a fan of the source material but his loyalty to spelling out each and every one felt slightly condescending. Despite this, it was the first hour with all of the party scenes where style over substance feels like a real treat - 'the orgy scene' at the city apartment is one of the real highlights here, starting off with wild antics and some humour before ending with (quite literally) a crashing blow.
At many points, the film seemed almost slavish to the book by quoting it frequently throughout the screenplay and lines from the it being plastered across the screen. In the final hour this is one of the ways by which the film excels. However the altered ending lost any of the subtlety of the book in favour of attempting to turn it into more of tragic love story than Fitzgerald's source material, which was first and foremost a portrayal of life in the roaring '20s. I felt this was an unnecessary hindrance and made me question whether this was the fault of studio's corporate greed trying to appeal to a teenage market that hadn't read the book and hold tragedies such as Titanic in high regard! By focusing on Gatsby and Daisy, the blossoming relationship between Nick and Jordan was lost in the ether - a shame since Elizabeth Debicki stole every scene she was in.
Whilst it's far from perfect, slightly losing the essence of the legendary source material through Baz Lurrhman's OTT style, it's still visually arresting, gripping way to spend two and a half hours.
4/5
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