Ain`t no party like a Gatsby party. I never made a conscious decision to go and see the Great Gatsby. I didn’t know what date it was coming out, no actor who was filming there was on my good account (except, of course, the incomparable Leo), but, nevertheless, this film popped up in my thoughts quite often. I don’t even know what caused it – the attention-grabbing posters and shots, the fabulous soundtracks or the debates that motivated the just-released film – but I just couldn’t resist a late-night session of the first post-premier screening.
To say that the film exceeded my expectations is to say nothing. Despite not always positive reviews from critics, the Great Gatsby persistently collects an impressive box office. Critics blame Tobey Maguire’s helplessness in storytelling for the “failure,” saying that “the script just falls to pieces” and Jay Z’s music doesn’t seem to fit into the jazz age. But it seems to me that the film has fulfilled its main task - to depict the false, deceitful and exaggeratedly romanticized atmosphere of the 1920s.
I really don’t know what I don’t like about this movie. The directing work, as well as the editing, eventually resulted in one of the most spectacular films I have ever seen. All my attention was directed to the screen, I was absolutely fascinated: 2 and a half hours flew by like 2 minutes, which means something.
The environment is one of the most interesting parts of the film. In addition to the New York of the 20s, the lively, bright, daring and similar Gatsby parties, filled with dancing, fireworks and ringing beaded dresses, we are shown a completely different side of this city - dirty, unwittingly ignorant workers, brothels, death - and the whole cycle of the city runs a short distance from the Gatsby country estate to the city center. With the development of the film, the two worlds will be intertwined in the most interesting ways, although for many this interaction will be undesirable.
Of course, in such a contrasting environment can not do without equally extravagant heroes. The first to introduce us is Nick Carroway, a kind of writer, but so far a player on the stock exchange, who only moved to New York with a passionate desire to realize his American dream. He might have embodied it if he hadn't settled in and met Gatsby, and his life didn't go up first, and then downhill, which usually happens, just start talking to people of your caliber. Nick also serves as a storyteller and, oddly enough, Tobey Maguire handled the role the best he could. I noticed his presence every second, but he never tired me and, even more pleasantly, did not impose his point of view.
Jay Gatsby hasn't been shown for as long as it takes to be interesting, but it's worth the wait. Gatsby is indescribable. He is calm and reserved, kind and sincere, mysterious and incomprehensible, he throws the loudest parties, but prefers to stay in the shadows, no one knows a single detail about his past and he prefers it to remain so. But by and large, it's all tinsel and masks. Jay Gatsby is lonely like a suicide bomber and, if anything could be worse, in love and betrayed. His stories are false, as are his gentlemanly manners. The only real thing he has is dreams of living with Daisy, but even here he's not completely honest. The only person Gatsby loves is himself. “Whoever we cry for, we cry for ourselves.”
Nick has a cousin in New York, a young, though already married, girl named Daisy Buchanan. It is beautiful and sparkling, but at the same time empty and lost. Daisy is everything a person should try to be. Nothing matters to her (and, more importantly, nobody in this exceptional film). Daisy takes no responsibility for her actions or the feelings of others. And yet everything Gatsby does is calculated to either attract her or get closer to her, and in the end, he will pay a cruel price.
The relationship between Daisy and Jay is ambiguous. At first they lose themselves in a once lost but new-found passion, but then they start wanting things. Actually, Jay's starting to want to because Daisy doesn't understand anything. She is excited to find Jay again, but doesn’t want to lose her life with her husband, Tom Buchanan, an arrogant but wealthy businessman, and deliberately gives Gatsby hope with remarks like “I never want to go home.” Jay waits and waits and waits, believing that the past can be brought back. He will never give up his position. Because that is not the position, but the foundation on which he built his life. And sooner or later it will collapse.
If it was possible to decorate the film more, then the creators found a win-win way - to choose a soundtrack written by artists so different from each other that it is impossible to believe that they all fit evenly into the atmosphere of the film. Lana Del Rey has created a masterpiece that perfectly reflects one of the main conflicts of the film: Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul? No Church In The Wild by Jay Z for me became inseparable from the turbulent and wild New York of the 20s and Florence Welch added, as always, grace and militant spirit.
The great Gatsby is a mixture of adrenaline, tension, alcohol, tears, laughter and everything that so ruthlessly excites the soul and imagination. This film is a journey in yellow, made to order Buick, from Gatsby estate through the most rotten slums of New York to what you truly believe. Gatsby believed in a green light in the mansion opposite, a stunning future that moves away from us year after year.
What do you believe in?
10 out of 10