This is one of the most pervasive points that comes up again and again in the reviews, but from as far as I can tell, it’s meant as a criticism. I don’t understand this, except in the sense that AO Scott expressed it in the New York Times, ending his review stating that the movie is “gaudily and grossly inauthentic,” therefore worthy of Gatsby. But even this, I think, fails to grasp the real point to this widely observed note.
The movie is Gatsby. It projects an air of spectacle and excess, trying to maintain energy and using gimmickry like 3D to command the crowd’s attention. But when you look closely, there are little cracks here and there, little unpolished elements that stick out and draw you in even more. I’m not sure what people expect from a Gatsby movie. It’s as though they want the movie to take on the attitude of Nick Carraway, observing the action from the outside, but as the narration in the movie harps on, the character exists both inside and outside. That’s impossible to achieve if the movie adopts the sensibility of Nick. It has to take on the identity of Gatsby, which puts us in the position of Nick, being taken in by the spectacle, even revelling in it at times, feeling close to Gatsby and at times sympathetic, but also just distant enough to be able to contemplate it.
It seems as though the opinions on this movie are like the opinions on Gatsby himself—widely variant, based on a lot of speculation, agenda-driven. The publicity as well as Baz Luhrmann’s involvement ensured the film would be preceded by an enormous and controversial reputation. I can’t help but feel when I’m reading all these reviews that their words are revealing far more about the critics who have presented them than they do about the movie itself (if you read them pretending they’re Tom Buchanan talking about Gatsby you may not even be able to tell the difference). Every now and then a movie comes along and does this, which is tremendously interesting for anyone like me who is fascinated by critical discourse. Perhaps the greatest testament to the success of The Great Gatsby is this effect, that when asked about it, answers range widely from hatred to sheepish admiration. More people ought to take on the boldness of Nick Carraway and be less afraid to refer to this imperfectly perfect movie with that most elusive of cinematic descriptors: great.
