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The Great Gatsby

"Gone is the romance that was so divine"

Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.

Top Cast

  • Robert Redford

    Robert Redford

    Jay Gatsby

  • Mia Farrow

    Mia Farrow

    Daisy Buchanan

  • Bruce Dern

    Bruce Dern

    Tom Buchanan

  • Karen Black

    Karen Black

    Myrtle Wilson

  • Scott Wilson

    Scott Wilson

    George Wilson

  • Sam Waterston

    Sam Waterston

    Nick Carraway

  • Lois Chiles

    Lois Chiles

    Jordan Baker

  • Howard Da Silva

    Howard Da Silva

    Meyer Wolfsheim

  • Roberts Blossom

    Roberts Blossom

    Mr. Gatz

Overview

Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.

Rating

6.3 / 10
515 Reviews
2 Popular

1 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    6 Jul 23, 2024

    "Nick" (Sam Waterston) lives in a cottage on the edge of the estate owned by the enigmatic "Gatsby" (Robert Redford) and is fascinated by the man. He has old money wealth and regularly hosts lavish parties for strangers whom her barely knows and to which he rarely bothers to go. "Nick" is unexpectedly invited to one such party and then to meet the man himself who isn't quite what he was expecting. This is the start of an unusual friendship that introduces him to a life of shallow profligacy, duplicity and some fairly ghastly individuals. "Gatsby" has taken a shine to "Daisy" (Mia Farrow) who is married to the rather brutish "Tom" (Bruce Dorn) and much of the rest of this lengthy period melodrama follows the intricacies of the new relationship between these two men, and of the latter man's increasingly dubious lifestyle that isn't quite playing out as "Nick" anticipated. Now this adaptation is an almost literal one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel - and that might have worked were we in a theatre. We are not, though, and what we are presented with here is a wordy and frankly rather sterile and plodding character study. Too much reliance is placed on the aesthetic elements - the costumes, sets, lavishness of the parties; indeed the imagery is gorgeous. It's supposed to be a love story, but the purported relationship between Redford and Farrow just doesn't resonate. I never really understood why she was so acclaimed in the first place - her performances were always rather hit or miss. The narration from Waterston also becomes a little too flat and the contrasting existences of the fabulously wealthy and the subsistence poor is hardly developed at all. My star of the film is Karen Black's "Myrtle" - possibly the only persona here that exudes anything like a sense of personality as she juggles her marriage and her affair. This is a nasty story about selfish and thoughtless people, but this iteration simply fails to capture that emotion, or - indeed - any other emotion either. Lots and lots of style, but it's lacking soul.

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