ALL THAT GLISTENS (THE GREAT GATSBY)
"They are both fruit but taste completely different."
Since the early days of cinema, a host of great filmmakers have taken on the challenge of trying to turn apples into oranges.
Some succeed and some fail.
In 1924, Erich Von Stroheim attempted a silent movie that literally adapted Frank Norris's San Francisco novel 'McTeague' and ended up with a first cut that was almost eight hours long.
The resultant movie, 'Greed' was butchered by Metro Golden Mayer, who slashed its running time to four hours and then turned it into a two hour incoherent mess. The original cut has been lost but in cinematic folklore it has been described by some as the greatest movie ever made.
Since then, filmmakers have struggled and failed to adapt successfully the works of great writers like Ernest Hemingway, Emily Bronte, Mary Shelley, Leo Tolstoy and James Joyce.
But for every weak adaptation, there have been tremendous successes like David Lean's versions of Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations' and 'Oliver Twist', John Ford's interpretation of John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath', Claude Berri's wonderful movie of Emile Zola's 'Germinal' or Michael Winterbottom's take on Thomas Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure'.
However, as The Guardian pointed out this week, F Scott Fitzgerald novels have consistently fared badly on the big screen.
Henry King's adaptation in 1962 of 'Tender of the Night' was a terribly dull affair, even with Jason Robards and Jennifer Jones in the role of the troubled couple, Dr Dick Diver and his wife, Nicole.
In 1976, Elia Kazan, working from a Harold Pinter screenplay, did not fare any better with 'The Last Tycoon' - a dispiritingly lifeless film, even with Robert de Niro in the lead role and Jack Nicholson in the supporting cast.
And then, there have been the attempts to make movies of 'The Great Gatsby'.
The first, a silent version by Paramount in 1927 with Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson and William Powell, was said to be so poor that Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda walked out of it. No surviving print exists.
In 1949, Paramount had another go with Elliot Nugent in the director's chair and Alan Ladd, Betty Field and Shelley Winters in the cast, but it failed to spark into life.
The English director Jack Clayton in 1974 tried his hand at a third attempt for Paramount with Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern and Sam Waterston working from a Francis Coppola screenplay but again the result turned out to be very flat.
Thirteen years ago, the A&E network had a pop at adapting it for television with Toby Stephens, Mira Sorvino, Martin Donovan and Paul Rudd in the cast and it also failed.
And so, for a fifth time F Scott Fitzgerald's most celebrated story hits our screens, with Australian director Baz Luhrmann behind the steering wheel - this time for Warner Brothers.
This most flamboyant of movie directors made a name for himself in 1996 with his thrilling Tarantinoesque take on 'William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet' with Leonardo di Caprio, Claire Daines, Jon Leguizamo and Pete Postlethwaite.
But he is also best known for his charming debut movie 'Strictly Ballroom' in 1992 and his dazzlingly camp Oscar nominated musical 'Moulin Rouge' in 2001 with Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor and Jim Broadbent.
And while his follow-up in 2008, the hugely ambitious but flawed epic 'Australia' with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman was a misfire with critics, it did well enough at the box office to land him a crack at 'The Great Gatsby'.
Lavish sets, sweeping camera movements, stunning digital animation and a tendency to mix current songs with stories from a bygone age are just some of the cinematic tricks that Luhrmann is best known for.
But there was particular interest in how we would deploy 3D in the telling of Fitzgerald's Great American Novel.
'The Great Gatsby' sees him reunite with Leonardo di Caprio who gamely takes on the role of the initially enigmatic Gatsby.
Also on board for the ride is one of di Caprio's real life chums, Tobey Maguire as the crestfallen narrator Nick Carraway, rising star Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan and the Bollywood legend, Amitabh Bachchan in his first Hollywood role.
The movie begins with an alcoholic Carraway (broken in much the same way as Ewan McGregor's sensitive writer, Christian was in 'Moulin Rouge') being encouraged by his psychiatrist Dr Perkins (Jack Thompson) to write down the events that have traumatised him.
What unfolds is a New York love story set in the hedonistic Jazz Age.
Carraway, a struggling writer, settles for a job on Wall Street and a modest cottage in the shadow of a Charles Foster Kane-style mansion owned by the enigmatic Jay Gatsby.
The mansion and Gatsby are known in New York for the opulent weekend parties staged there which anyone can attend.
At the start of the film, no-one really knows who Gatsby is and the rumour mill says he is a German spy or that he killed a man once.
Gatsby eventually reveals himself to a cynical and smart young professional golfer Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki) and also his neighbour Carraway, who he invites to one of the parties.
It soon becomes clear why.
Jay Gatsby wants to win back the great love of his life, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) - Nick Carraway's cousin who is trapped in a marriage to the brutish, womanising snob playing polo player Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton).
While New York marvels at the extravagant life of Gatsby, he is consumed by a romantic infatuation with Daisy whose house sits tantalisingly across the bay from his.
By befriending Nick, Gatsby hopes he can rekindle a relationship with Daisy that was ruptured by the First World War.
Fitzgerald's novel, of course, was interested in more than just a simple tale of unrequited love.
Class figures heavily in his superbly crafted book, with Gatsby representing dodgy new money and Tom Buchanan representing the old money, bigoted American elite.
But the novel is also a parable about the American Dream, with Gatsby believing, to misquote The Beatles, money can buy you love.
Luhrmann's movie is a loving adaptation of the book, with the director even reprinting onscreen some of F Scott Fitzgerald's most celebrated prose including that gorgeous final line of the novel: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
That poetic payoff captures perfectly Gatsby's predicament.
But ironically, it also captures perfectly the problem with Luhrmann's adaptation.
The director deploys many of the narrative ticks we have seen him use before - specifically in 'Moulin Rouge' with its crestfallen narrator, its dazzling CGI creation of a great city, its grotesque inhabitants and its hedonistic parties.
It is so in your face, you can't help feeling he has conceived 'The Great Gatsby' as 'Moulin Rouge's' American cousin.
But in concentrating on the lavishness of New York's Jazz Age, it drags down the narrative of the film and the pace is frustratingly leaden.
While there is no doubt that cinematographer Simon Duggan's images, the use of digital animation and production designer Catherine Martin's sets are impressive, they do not compensate for the sluggishness of Luhrmann and fellow screenwriter Craig Pearce's script.
Much has been made about Luhrmann's other trademark decision to team up with rapper Jay Z and Jeymes Samuel's The Bullits on a soundtrack that features Lana Del Rey, Jack White, Florence and the Machine and Beyonce, teaming up with Andre 3000.
But the director's decision to mix hip hop with Jazz Era choreography comes across as a tired old device that jars rather than convinces.
As for the performances, di Caprio dominates the movie - essaying the best Gatsby we have ever seen onscreen (even if Gatsby's forced use of the phrase "old sport" grates, as it does in the novel).
When he is onscreen, di Caprio burns with a charisma that is missing from the other principal actors.
But try as he might, the movie only really kickstarts during a fateful confrontation between Gatsby and Tom Buchanan in the sweltering heat of a New York hotel room - with di Caprio, his cheeks twitching madly, and Joel Edgerton ramping up their performances significantly.
Amitabh Bachchan also provides a moment of magic during his brief cameo as the bootlegger, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Isla Fisher is impressively tarty as Tom Buchanan's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, Australian actor, Jason Clarke (from the underrated Irish American gangster series 'Brotherhood') also turns in a solid performance as Myrtle's cuckolded mechanic husband, George and Elizabeth Debicki strikes the right tone as Jordan Baker.
But as Daisy, Carey Mulligan fails to make much of an impression unlike her stunning performances in Lone Scherfig's 'An Education' or as Michael Fassbender's damaged sister in Steve McQueen's 'Shame'.
She turns in a rather limp performance to rank alongside Mia Farrow's equally wan performance in Jack Clayton's version of the novel.
Tobey Maguire also disappoints, walking through most of the movie with a naive, boyish look on his face but is not really convincing as a smart would-be writer.
There are nods to Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' and Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' from Luhrmann but the overwhelming impression from this glittery adaptation is that the director has been borne ceaselessly on the tide of recreating past glories, especially 'Moulin Rouge'.
While great filmmakers have signature themes and styles, they constantly stretch themselves and subvert them.
You cannot help feeling here instead of replicating past successes, Luhrmann desperately needs to develop new tricks.
High camp and lavish sets are all fine and dandy but 'The Great Gatsby' proves that all that glitters is not gold - especially if style overtakes substance.
As for a great adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby', it remains tantalisingly out of reach just like the green light at the end of Tom and Buchanan's dock.
This may be a labour of love but, appropriately, it is a love's labour lost.
('The Great Gatsby' opened in the Movie House and other UK and Northern Ireland cinemas on May 16, 2013. This review originally appeared on Eamonnmallie.com)
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