Released on May 10, 2013, The Great Gatsby is a new film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book of the same name.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick, and Carey Mulligan as Daisy, the movie is the fifth film based on the book. It’s undoubtedly the most modern adaptation of the book made, using new music from recent years, including rap by will.i.am, along with new singles by Lana Del Ray and Florence and the Machine. The film itself is an attempt to stay very faithful to the original source material, with Nick’s voice overs often coming straight from the book. However, some basic facts and symbols from the novel have been changed.
While the book is written in first person narrative, narrated by Nick Carraway after the events have all transpired, the film uses a frame story to explain why Nick is telling this story – he is in a sanitarium for “morbid alcoholism,” anxiety and depression. The doctor tells Nick to write Gatsby’s story down since Nick doesn’t want to talk about it.
This frame story is the largest change from the novel. Giving Nick such mental issues can be considered in two ways – out of character or in character. One point of view is that Nick would be turned away from excess by all he had seen in New York; the other is that Gatsby made such an effect on Nick that he is fully changed (for the worse) after Gatsby’s death.
Personally, I think the frame story was extremely effective and fit with Nick’s ending from the book, where he moved away from the East Coast because of his disgust with all the moral decay.
The other major change from the novel is the downplaying of Owl Eyes. In the book, Nick found Owl Eyes drunk in a library during one of Gatsby’s parties. He is, later, the only one of Gatsby’s party-goers who attends Gatsby’s funeral. He, with his round glasses, can also be used as a comparison with the billboard of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.
In the film, however, he appears as a simple plot device only, telling Nick and Jordan Baker that he doesn’t think Gatsby exists. Leaving him out of Gatsby’s funeral makes him even smaller of an affair than in the book, where both Owl Eyes and Gatsby’s father come to the funeral.
The filmmakers also make Gatsby less mysterious. In the book, Gatsby dies with Nick still knowing little about him. It’s only at his funeral that Gatsby’s father, Henry Gatz, explains to Nick about Gatsby’s past life (running away from home, changing his name and creating a plan to improve himself). This doesn’t fit with Gatsby’s earlier veiled nature.
The movie is extremely entertaining. DiCaprio makes an engaging Gatsby, particularly when he has Daisy over for tea at Nick’s house – he portrays all of the emotions a man would feel in that situation perfectly, and you really feel for him. The filmmakers make a heroic attempt to make Fitzgerald’s prose come through in dialogue and verbatim voiceovers. All in all, the movie is an extraordinary film for the casual Gatsby fan (the one who won’t nitpick every single plot detail). This film is A Great Gatsby, not The Great Gatsby.