Trailer Tuesday: The Great Gatsby

I never had to study it at high school or university level, but F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has never done much for me. What I definitely don’t find bland though is the first trailer for Baz (Moulin Rouge!) Luhrmann’s upcoming adaptation of the American literary classic. Finally The Great Gatsby looks electric and unmissable!

Having already been adapted for the big screen 5 times – most famously on 1974, with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow – The Great Gatsby is a tale of romance, deception and tragedy, set during the Roaring Twenties long before the 1929 stock market crash ruined all the fun.

The Great Gatsby is told from the perspective of Midwesterner Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) who finds himself living next door to the Long Island mansion of dashing, enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby (Baz’s Romeo + Juliet leading man Leonardo DiCaprio). Invited to “golden boy” Gatsby’s wild parties, Nick witnesses first hand the decadence and infidelities of the young, powerful and rich during the morally loose Jazz Era. Then trouble rears its head when Gatsby meets Daisy (Carey Mulligan) a woman from his past. Except now she’s married to the unfaithful Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton) and has a young child.

Shot specifically for 3D, The Great Gatsby is a step away from realism into something dazzling, frenetic and deliriously stylised. That is, of course, the trademark of love-him-or-hate-him filmmaker Luhrmann.

Personally, I’m a fan of Luhrmann’s consciously unsubtle work (for the most part), and with such a stellar sub-40 cast I think we can look forward to a high energy visual treat at the end of the year.

The Great Gatsby opens on 25 December in the US. The film’s South African release date is currently set for 4 January 2013.