Hello movie lovers!! I had never watched The Great Gatsby before[,] and I admit that the movie is a lot better than I expected. The story takes place in The United States in 1922. Tom Buchanan is a rich man who inherited the wealth of his family and married a beautiful girl called Daisy. However, even though he is “happily married”, he was a womanizer and doesn’t even care to hide it from his wife.
Jay Gatsby is a war veteran who fell in love with Daisy five years earlier. The fact that he was poor back then tore them apart. Jay always thought he was born to be great and struggled to achieve his dream. When he finally became a wealthy man, he spent his money throwing huge parties and showing off his wealth to get Daisy’s attention. Gatsby and Tom represent the new rich and the old rich in America, respectively. The battle between them over a woman represents the battle between the old money and the new money in that decade.
Gatsby’s love for Daisy beoames almost an obsession. He would do anything for her. It got clear to me when he took the blame for killing Tom’s lover (Myrtle) while Daisy [was] left unpunished. However, Jay’s unconditional love led him to his ruin because Myrtle’s Husband thought he [would] revenge his wife by killing Gatsby!
This end to the Great Gatsby was totally unfair in my opinion, because Jay could do anything for love while Daisy was playing him the whole time! She didn’t even go to his funeral! I felt really sorry for Gatsby because his struggle to become a successful man was in vain.
Although the movie is about a story that supposedly happened many decades ago, the modern touch the director gives to the film definitely caught my attention. I really enjoyed the soundtrack with contemporary songs and the movie is visually beautiful: the costumes, the scenario, the makeup, the visual effects… To sum up, I love everything about this movie, but the tragic end!!
Thank you for reading my review!
Thanks.
Teacher's note: A well-deserved thanks are extended to this gracious movie lover and author for such a thoughtful and insightful overview and opinion piece of "The Great Gatsby." I agree that throwing in a few modern twists in the form of music and visual style somehow fulfills the purpose of drawing us ever nearer to another time. What a touch of movie-making brilliance!
--mike
www.moviesgrowenglish.com 