Deadline/Scribner
Carey Mulligan must be happy. As our own Kevin Fallon wrote earlier this week, the young actress won the coveted role of Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann's new production of The Great Gatsby. Mulligan beat the likes of Scarlett Johannson, and Keira Knightly for the role of F. Scott Fitzgerald's greatest femme fatale, joining an already gaudy cast that includes Lurhmann favorite Leonardo DiCarprio in the title role and Tobey Maguire in the infinitely more meaty part of Nick Carraway. The only leaves Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker as major parts left unfilled. Make we suggest Chris Pine or Ryan McPartlin for Tom? Blake Lively, who reportedly auditioned as Daisy, makes much more sense as the jaunty golfer. There is no word yet on who will play Myrtle Wilson or Ewing "The Boarder" Klipspringer, but yours truly—a self-avowed Fitzgerald freak from way back—is openly campaigning for a cameo as "Owl Eyes," Gatsby's otherwise unnamed library patron.
MORE ON The Great Gatsby:
Adam Eaglin: How to Make a Good 'Great Gatsby' Movie: A Guide for Baz Luhrmann
Kevin Fallon: Casting 'The Great Gatsby': Baz Luhrmann Picks Carey Mulligan to Play Daisy Buchanan
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Concentrate
The hype around the casting of Gatsby is unusual enough—virtually unprecedented for a non-superhero movie. More interesting, though, are the arguments against making the film at all. New York magazine reported that Mulligan won the Daisy role under the headline "Should They Even Be Making Another Great Gatsby Movie?" Mulligan herself seems to think so. Reports say that she wept openly—in front of Anna Wintour, no less—when Lurhmann called to give her the news.
Her fellow Briton, Sarah Churchwell, disagrees. Writing in The Guardian (UK), Churchwell argued that Luhrmann's film will inevitably fail to capture the majesty of Fitzgerald's work, just as have the half-dozen screen adaptations before it.
Churchwell is right that Luhrmann's adaptation is doomed to fall short—"fail" is far too strong of a word for a director that could make a Shakespearean tragedy work as a rock video. The film won't come close the power of the novel, but not simply because Gatsby is a book, and, as the cliché insists, the Book is Always Better Than The Movie. Film versions of Fitzgerald's masterwork inevitably fail because of the kind of novel Gatsby is—frankly thin on story, but incredibly thick with introspection, thoughts unspoken, intricately woven metaphor, and long, dazzling descriptions of otherwise mundane things like sunsets, front lawns and angry wives that are only special because of how the narrator describes them.