The Great Gatsby: Character vs Caricature

The decadent and hedonistic Twenties roared onto the screen in Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby. It was a fabulous spectacle: all non-stop speed, dazzle and dash, bursts of colour, explosions of noise and music and frenzied partying. The fashion evoked the era but bore an unmistakably twenty-teens edge, the diamonds sparkled aggressively and the pearls provided a soft glow in counterpoint. Probably that much beading will never be seen again in the history of cinema.

But this was a triumph of style over substance – however much I do admire Luhrman’s commitment to his singular style – for where was the heart of this story? Where was the humanity, I wondered? This is a tale of vain and empty people, perhaps a true reflection of a certain strata of society of the time, but by film’s end there was nothing left to hold onto. We do not watch real people, but larger-than-life archetypes – caricatures. We do not care if they live or die, and can only despise them for their various wants of character. But this is no fault of Luhrman’s: it is how Fitzgerald wrote his characters. 

Gatsby himself is an egomaniacal crook, naïve about love and obsessed with the spineless and mercenary child, Daisy (even her name is unsophisticated); her husband Tom, a lusty, cruel and hypocritical brute takes advantage of his discontented mistress and her hapless husband; the extremely well-dressed and polished Jordan is the kindest but ultimately wrapped up in herself; and finally Nick, our narrator, is an ineffectual observer who is swept along this fast current and laments too late.

But the film is spectacular to look at – everyone and everything is beautiful. The Great Gatsby is super-glossy, a feast for the eyes served at speed, and ultimately a wonderland that cannot be believed in. It is a modern fairy-tale with a grim conclusion. 

Read an intelligent review of the book by Kathryn Schulz at Vulture.