I don’t know if it’s the strength of Fitzgerald’s novel or Luhrman’s good understanding of it, but this is a far better adaptation than I was expecting.

In case you weren’t in an American high school, The Great Gatsby follows Nick Carraway (played here by Tobey Maguire), a bond trader moved to New York from the Midwest. He purchases a small house in West Egg, a suburb of New York City, and lives across the bay from his cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) and her husband, Nick’s college friend, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). Nick’s neighbor is the mysterious Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), a playboy who’d be notable for the monstrous parties he throws each weekend were it not for the cryptic means through which he funds them.

Nick attends one of Gatsby’s parties, swept up with intrigue and confusion about his host — hearing rumors of his relation to the Kaiser; tales of his work as a spy; whispers of his past at Oxford — many of them from his new acquaintance Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki), female golfer and social gossipista.

Eventually he runs into Gatsby, who appears at Gershwin’s moment of climax during Rhapsody in Blue. The two stir a friendship and small details of Gatsby’s history begin to drip out. He came from a wealthy family. He’s a hero of World War I. He’s…story after story. And, years ago, he was desperately in love with Daisy. But the war and school and other things kept them apart, leaving Tom to claim her. Gatsby’s convinced that, given some time with his lost love, he could convince her to leave her husband and marry him. It’s a solid plan, especially seeing as how Tom is not particularly discreet about his own affairs. But buried beneath this romance is…

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