FilmFreak94
Joined Apr 2011
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The Great Gatsby is one of the most famous American novels ever written and my personal favorite book. The success of the book has led to several adaptions on screen such as this one made in 1974 with a screenplay by Roman Polanski and starring such great talents as Robert Redford as the titular character and Mia Farrow as Daisy Fay Buchanan. With this creative force you would think the film would be a decent if not very well done adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald's greatest work. Well...
I am one of those people who believes you should be as faithful as you can to the source material when adapting a book to screen, but there is such a thing as being too faithful. What works well in a book won't work for a film and vice versa. They are each their own language and when you try to adapt almost every word and action in a book without knowing the deeper meaning of these themes than you end up with a confused and overall boring film like this one.
At the start I was pleased with how most of the dialog was taken from the book and felt that I was in for a decent adaption while not really expecting it to be better than the book. This idea died quickly after about twenty minutes in. As the scenes from the book that you could easily read through in about twenty minutes seemed to take an hour to run their course here. The pacing and editing of this film damages it intensely. Scenes and shots seem to drag longer than they should and a good 3/4 of the film seems to overstay its welcome. They also move around the dialog that belonged in one chapter or a bit of narration and place in scenes that make it feel out of place and forced. Such as the scenes in the middle of the film when Gatsby and Daisy begin their love affair anew. The middle of the film in particular seems to be the most glaring example of how poor the films pacing is. Scenes with Gatsby and Daisy that should feel intimate happen unrealistically and brings the film to an almost stand-still. There are three scenes, one after the other, of Gatsby and Daisy talking about their relationship past and present and telling Daisy's husband Tom that she's leaving him before the film finally moves on in the plot.
The acting talent varies from actor to actor. Robert Redford was a decent enough Gatsby, but either because of bad direction or poor acting choices he never really stands out and makes the role his own. You can tell he's trying to emulate the character but he never steps out of his own skin and completely becomes Jay Gatsby. Sam Waterston is overall bland as Nick Carraway, the film's narrator. He's not bad by any means but he doesn't provide any of the character traits that the Nick from the book does and seems to fade into the background even when a scene pertains to him. Bruce Dern as Tom Buchanan I found to be just awful. He either had terrible direction or had no idea about Tom's character from the book. His voice barely goes higher than a whisper and his voice seems more like he's whining than demanding. The complete opposite of Tom from the book. The supporting cast don't really stand out either or bring a lot of life to their characters. The one true positive in the entire cast I found was Mia Farrow as Daisy Fay. She seemed to understand everything Fitzgerald was going for with her character. Portraying her with some hidden depths but overall being just as conceited and frivolous as any other girl from that era. Exactly what I imagined while reading the book.
The set design overall didn't really impress me. It felt more like a 70s film trying to be in the 1920s more than anything else. The costumes, while extravagant at times, don't really stand out either as they barely seem to take advantage of the more absurd style of clothing from the Roaring 20s.
Overall this version left me wanting immensely by the end and bored me throughout. If I'm wondering how much time is left before the first hour is through then you probably haven't done the best of jobs. It's a shame because you can tell they were going for a faithful representation of Fitzgerald's work but that same faithfulness winds up being a crutch more than an asset in the end. If you're looking for a truly great adaption of The Great Gatsby, this film just isn't it.
I am one of those people who believes you should be as faithful as you can to the source material when adapting a book to screen, but there is such a thing as being too faithful. What works well in a book won't work for a film and vice versa. They are each their own language and when you try to adapt almost every word and action in a book without knowing the deeper meaning of these themes than you end up with a confused and overall boring film like this one.
At the start I was pleased with how most of the dialog was taken from the book and felt that I was in for a decent adaption while not really expecting it to be better than the book. This idea died quickly after about twenty minutes in. As the scenes from the book that you could easily read through in about twenty minutes seemed to take an hour to run their course here. The pacing and editing of this film damages it intensely. Scenes and shots seem to drag longer than they should and a good 3/4 of the film seems to overstay its welcome. They also move around the dialog that belonged in one chapter or a bit of narration and place in scenes that make it feel out of place and forced. Such as the scenes in the middle of the film when Gatsby and Daisy begin their love affair anew. The middle of the film in particular seems to be the most glaring example of how poor the films pacing is. Scenes with Gatsby and Daisy that should feel intimate happen unrealistically and brings the film to an almost stand-still. There are three scenes, one after the other, of Gatsby and Daisy talking about their relationship past and present and telling Daisy's husband Tom that she's leaving him before the film finally moves on in the plot.
The acting talent varies from actor to actor. Robert Redford was a decent enough Gatsby, but either because of bad direction or poor acting choices he never really stands out and makes the role his own. You can tell he's trying to emulate the character but he never steps out of his own skin and completely becomes Jay Gatsby. Sam Waterston is overall bland as Nick Carraway, the film's narrator. He's not bad by any means but he doesn't provide any of the character traits that the Nick from the book does and seems to fade into the background even when a scene pertains to him. Bruce Dern as Tom Buchanan I found to be just awful. He either had terrible direction or had no idea about Tom's character from the book. His voice barely goes higher than a whisper and his voice seems more like he's whining than demanding. The complete opposite of Tom from the book. The supporting cast don't really stand out either or bring a lot of life to their characters. The one true positive in the entire cast I found was Mia Farrow as Daisy Fay. She seemed to understand everything Fitzgerald was going for with her character. Portraying her with some hidden depths but overall being just as conceited and frivolous as any other girl from that era. Exactly what I imagined while reading the book.
The set design overall didn't really impress me. It felt more like a 70s film trying to be in the 1920s more than anything else. The costumes, while extravagant at times, don't really stand out either as they barely seem to take advantage of the more absurd style of clothing from the Roaring 20s.
Overall this version left me wanting immensely by the end and bored me throughout. If I'm wondering how much time is left before the first hour is through then you probably haven't done the best of jobs. It's a shame because you can tell they were going for a faithful representation of Fitzgerald's work but that same faithfulness winds up being a crutch more than an asset in the end. If you're looking for a truly great adaption of The Great Gatsby, this film just isn't it.
