I'm regrettably unfamiliar with The Great Gatsby novel but I'm also regrettably familiar with Baz Luhrmann's filmography. I swore to myself that I wouldn't bother seeing this adaptation as I hated Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet and there's no way he's breaking that trend. He's all about style and his style stinks. But then my obligation to watch all the key films of 2013 drew me to having at least an opinion. Needless to say, my expectations were rock bottom and with that in mind, I was relatively surprised. Luhrmann is usually consistently insufferable but Gatsby has moments of promise. Moments that were swiftly ruined by flashes of indulgent and misguided style but it efficiently tricked me for a second that it could be decent. I even teased the idea that perhaps the film is in bad taste deliberately to prove a point about greed and vanity but that soon became clear that no, it's supposed to be taken seriously.

There are many aspects of the film I disliked and hated, but all to varying degrees. Special hate highlights go to the cringeworthy Tobey Maguire (of whom I worry about in the brilliantly written Labor Day), the dreadfully misplaced hip-hop-pop soundtrack and the abysmal special effects. Who approves those effects? Come on. Let alone that the film is awfully rushed and its melodramatic script makes a mockery of its most dramatic moments. That said, the atmosphere of the film isn't as bad as I expected and certainly not as torturous as Moulin and Romeo are for me. I quite liked Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan. There's a scene I really liked where Gatsby meets Daisy for the first time in a while, DiCaprio's charm really makes that moment work. It's unfortunate the emotions conjured afterwards aren't as great. Unsurprising misfire but I'll still read the book with an open mind and hopefully without thinking of this.

4/10