In print The Great Gatsby has always been a story of dividing meanings. Some view it as a take-down of the crazed partying of the roaring twenties, while others think it's more than that, looking at the emptiness of the lives of those involved. Some would even go as far to insinuate it is actually a love story. Naturally all these ideas would be resurrected when the book everyone slogged through in English class became a big budget movie, with flashy visuals replacing those pesky words. The latest, and also biggest, adaptation came last year from Baz Luhrmann, with the pizzaz turned up to twelve, bringing this confusion of meaning into the internet age. By the end Jay Gatsby is dead in his pool, still pining for Daisy, which clearly seems to embody that money can't buy you love. And yet the bright CGI and modern music that gave this take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel such a unique feel blinded many people to that, with them only taking that partying is fun; in the months following the movie's release Gatsby-style parties sprung up over America. Which would be fine if Midnight In Paris hadn't itself highlighted how fruitless longing for the past it.
