“The Great Gatsby” certainly is great. It manages to mix together a sense of mystery, reality, and 1920s style with a bit of common day culture.
The movie cast is composed of well known stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Jay Gatsby, and Toby Maguire who played Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s friend and the initial narrator of the movie.
Although in previous films Maguire comes off as almost too awkward for the roles he takes on, he suits this character perfectly. Carraway is supposed to be a introverted, shy person who wants to make it in the city by selling stocks, and Maguire succeeds at this role with ease.
In the popular novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carraway is the narrator of the story, and the movie does a great job at keeping this for his role and not making it awkward or hard to follow. Throughout the film in the background, Carraway constantly keeps the viewers updated on misleading or unclear things that would only be known from reading the novel, even saying things that are quoted straight from the novel itself.
In addition, the movie does a good job at staying true to the book, with only a few minor differences to allow for the actors and directors personal twist of originality.
For example, throughout Gatsby’s massive parties he hosts, the music being played is modern music with an upbeat and rebellious tone relating to the way jazz music was the rebellious music of the 1920s. It adds this twist while keeping the people in the movie who are attending the parties dressed and dancing according to the accurate time period of the early 1920s.
This not only relates to the time period of when the movie takes place, but it also relates to people of modern day. This makes the festivities more appealing and enjoyable for the viewer because they can relate more to the actions and occurrences of the parties.
The main difference the movie shares from the book is the movie’s elaboration of Carraway after the climax of the story line occurs. The movie does a great job at continuing the story of Nick Carraway’s life after the book ended, but at the same time it does not become too presumptuous by creating too much of a story line of its own. It, once again, does a great job at finding an equal balance of creativity while accurately telling the original story line.
Overall, the movie creates an appealing combination of modern day life, while staying focused on the main purpose of portraying one of the most popular novels in American literature, “The Great Gatsby.”

 Haley Kyger is a Sports Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.