I finished re-reading The Great Gatsby today and was in the mood for analysis, discussion, and more interpretations. So I started watching the 2013 version with Toby and Leo. Got about 20 minutes in before the stream froze to buffer and I decided it wasn’t worth trying to get worth working again.
The movie was a fever dream. The editing was so frantic I couldn’t get a feel for a scene before it blew by. The CGI was gratuitous and unattractive! From a book reader perspective it was unfaithful to the novel, and from a cinema perspective it was a toad in a blender.
I’d love to hear some positive criticisms of the movie adaptation - maybe someone saw something in it that I didn’t.
I’d also enjoy any reviews of the previous version from decades ago.
One last thing, I think the movie would have worked much better if it was placed in 2002 - similar positivity on life, “great” war for Americans, and a looming financial crisis. It would have made the weird editing make much more sense, kind of like the remake of Romeo and Juliet (coincidentally starring Leo)
Yeah I watched the movie a few days after reading the book and… I struggled to make any real connections between them.
Like Leo’s Romeo+Juliet movie, a ‘modern reimagining’. I think it’s a neat idea on paper, but it didn’t work for these two movies, in my opinion.
The Gatsby movie was all about the excess and money spending at the parties i guess. It didn’t balance it out with the rest of the books themes so it just comes across as flat.