Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAMERICAN DREAM FOR LOVE and LOVE IS BLIND.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2020
This film will be a classic in time, with its scenes, dialogues, soundtracks.
It's a heart breaking story of AMERICAN DREAM FOR LOVE and LOVE IS BLIND.
It is based on Francis Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the same name. I did not read the novel.
Gatsby was born to a poor rural family in North Dakota.
From childhood he dreams that he is destined to be a great man.
He is very optimistic, and believes if one wants too much of a thing, he should be able to get it.
And means of reaching those goals seem to be not a matter of concern for him.
It looks like Gatsby's frustration with being poor, being in lower end of the society starts with childhood.
Just before attending WW I he fells in love with Daisy in a party.
While Gatsby is poor and uneducated, Daisy belongs to high end society.
Nevertheless they promise to each other to marry when the War ends. On his return, he finds out that she is married with another rich man, Tom.
Tom studied at Yale, is a polo sport star, and heir to very rich family. He enjoys being member of white high class society.
He believes that there are differences between classes, and races. He is a racist.
He is also cheating on Daisy with Myrtle, wife of poor garage owner George.
Daisy seems to be not in great with love with Tom, neither she minds Tom's cheating on her.
She got stuck in this life. But she does not mind as long as she is rich and surrounded by the people of that world.
They are living in a fancy mansion in Long Island next to bay.
Gatsby is obsessed with her love, and he thinks he can get her back, if he is also rich. His childhood obsession of WILL starts moving.
Well somehow, (somehow is illegal ways), he becomes filthy rich.
He buys a château on the other side of the bay across the Daisy's house.
Though he is uncomfortable with his lack of education and high class culture, he tries to cover that up with huge open public parties at his château.
Among the guests are senator, famous actress. He expects one day Daisy will also attend.
Party scenes at château are display of American capitalism's might. I am not sure if there is any other film that displays joyful, optimistic, extravagant sphere of 1920s economic boomdays.
Gatsby lives in two worlds. One is stressful illegal world, running and keeping up the business, dealing with criminals.
Other one is the one who child like a optimistic, having pure love for Daisy.
Gatsby meets with Daisy with at Nick's small house which is next to his château.
Then their affair starts.
Nick is a distant cousin of Daisy, and friend of Tom from Yale.
He studied literature at Yale, but eventually ended up working in the fancy financial world of New York.
How Nick ended up living in a house next to Gatsby's château is unclear.
And this proximity introduces Gatsby to Nick and he asks this Tea Party arrangement with Daisy.
Nick is almost in all the scenes.
He presents this natural objective observer type of fellow having equal distance to everyone, having trust of everyone.
Tom, Daisy, Gatsby likes him a lot. He is part of all social occasions.
I think viewer has the same feeling for Nick. Most loved man of the movie.
Tobey Maguire's uninterrupted attraction took the viewer into the movie.
Eventually Gatsby asks Daisy to tell Tom to leave him. Gatsby is confident Daisy loves him and does not love Tom.
But here he is blinded by love. Daisy sees the class difference between Tom and Gatsby.
Gatsby optimism, naivety misses this.
While Gatsby is waiting for a phone call from Daisy to return to him, he gets shot and killed by George, the poor garage owner.
George killed Gatsby thinking that his wife is killed in traffic accident by a reckless driver.
George thinks driver was Gatsby. He also thinks Gatsby had affair with his wife.
But truth is his wife is killed by Daisy driving Gatsby huge shiny yellow car, Gatsyb was sitting next to her. They ran away after the accident.
While Gatsby is hiding this fact, and ready to be accused of accident, Daisy on the eve of the accident, told Tom she was driving the car and killed Myrtle.
Tom and Daisy already made plan to leave New York.
One feels heart broken, and sympathy for Gatsby's naivety belief being rich will be enough to get her back.
At the funeral of Gatsby, no one, including Daisy, shows up, but only Nick.
Because he is portrayed as a murderer and having affair with a married woman.
This is the scene one feels, questions love is also sickness, or a drug.
Nick leaves New York getting sick and tired of all the fake lifes, deception he sees there.
Movie starts with he is narrating from a sanatorium where he gets psychological treatment.
His doctor advises him to write the entire story that brought him to sanatorium.
And he does that, and he names his memorise The Great Gatsby.
Nick sees Gatsby as the only real one in the ocean of fakeness and deception.
Movie makes the viewer feel like capitalist completion affairs make a normal and a lovely person like Nick, depressed , and sick.
I watched movie twice, and noticed the how lovely the soundtracks only then.
One can keep on listening "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Rey, and "Back to Black" by Beyoncé sitting in the couch for hours.
I think tune of these two songs is the story of this film.