The Great Gatsby(2013)

"The Great Gatsby"(2013) is the 5th version adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the same name written in 1925. The story is about a young millionaire Jay Gatsby who experienced a lot of hard work, from a poor bottom class man to become a millionaire just for chasing his true love—Daisy who is already marry to other people. Fitzgerald used Gatsby’s tragic story to reveal the temptation and the ruin of “American dream”. Generally, the film follows the original novel mostly. While I still found some interesting differences between the film and the novel. To me, the most interesting differences are appear in the scene of conflict happened in a swell suite of Plaza Hotel in New York between Tom, Gatsby and Daisy. In the movie, when Tom told the truth, Daisy just sat beside the Nick and held his hand, but we can’t see so much fear of her, until Gatsby lost his temper and caught Tom’s collar. Actually, the novel also doesn’t describe about Gatsby wanted to beat Tom, because after Tom exposed about Gatsby’s illegal means of making money, Daisy was totally stunned, she “was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband”. To the Gatsby, he also lost his momentum and “began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made”. Also, in the movie Tom showed the attitude about his “old money” to despise Gatsby’s “newly money” in the movie, but this speech didn’t appear in the novel precisely. I think these alterations have exaggerated the plot to more vivid and indeed make the story easier to be understood by audiences today. But seen from a different angle, these alterations have reduced the depth about the novel and even lead the personality of the characters to change slightly. In the movie, we saw a Daisy no so weak and a Gatsby more like a young teenager.

I would like to give these movie 4 stars, because the frames, music and the performance of the actors are all excellent.