Went to The Great Gatsby tonight. Typically, for the Odeon Kensington, there was nobody to take my ticket and I spent some minutes trying to get any staff to notice me. The one who finally did actually looked surprised that there was nobody there to take tickets - which, in itself, surprised me, considering that that is my usual experience at this cinema.
Must remember the optimal seat number. I am usually, like tonight, in Screen 6, and I did remember that the optimal row is D. Optimal seat number - the most central - probably 8. Anyway. I spent the first ten minutes or so of the film thinking "This is terrible. This was a dreadful mistake. What is everybody making a fuss about?" It was overblown, overacted, overchoreographed. It was full of unnecessary sweeping shots, obviously intended for the 3D version, which, thankfully, this wasn't. And it didn't look real.
And then.. just about when our narrator (Tobey Maguire) showed up at his first party at Gatsby's.. the whole thing started to make the most marvellous sense. The parties, by the way, were fantastic. They needed to be for this, and they were. The stupid sweeping shots stopped (pretty much) and we got down to the story. And it is beautifully done. Leonardo DiCaprio is terrific in the role - much better than Robert Redford was, back in the day. Much more believable as a war hero. The costumes and sets are gorgeous. Sometimes it still looked a bit unreal to me - something about the lighting - but it was less noticeable. Also notable was the modern soundtrack, which doesn't always work in period films but I thought fitted in beautifully here.
Highly recommended. Best film I've seen in months.
Passion Play tomorrow night, followed by The Play That Goes Wrong on Saturday..
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