With a rich 1920s landscape to play within, a very capable list of
actors, an award-winning visual director, a hip soundtrack, and material
that everyone is required to read in high school, The Great Gatsby has all of the ingredients of pure filmmaking genius and against all odds, grasps failure from the jaws of success.
It is hard to know where to start when a movie is such a big failure in so many different ways as is The Great Gatsby.
Based on the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, screen writer and
director Baz Luhrmann hacks apart, distorts concepts, over-stylizes
visuals, makes poor choices with music, pulls bad performances from good
actors and transforms quality material into long-winded
pretentiousness.
