Excellent .gif, the story is so great that you simply can't go wrong with it on any version.
My official rating for this movie is 9.2 out of 10.
I honestly believe this movie is highly underappreciated for various reasons.
One is that it is Leo DiCaprio, and there is a bias against him for pretty much ego reasons. Even getting him an Oscar was rough for these exact reasons, even with Martin Scorsese and Stephen Spielberg backing him up on different occasions.
The second thing is that Toby Mcguire has a humor about his personality, and it makes hard for people to take him seriously enough. There is a level of respect, but not enough because of that reason.
Plus now that we know he was the real life player of Molly's Game represented by Michael Cera, people are less inclined to show appreciation, even if he is the Spider Man they grew up with.
The director from Moulin Rouge! has a particular vision, in which he tries to demonstrate that people have had similar feelings towards gathering socially throughout the ages, and in order to get this point across he uses modern culture references so people from this time can understand how that felt for people of a different time.
He is very good at doing that, and he particularly nails it with one of my favorite movie scenes of all time which is the one where they have George Gershwin, one of the artists of the time, playing his masterpiece Rhapsody In Blue in the background mixed with some modern bass and tunes. I even recommended cranking your subs up a bit for this.
It is so great that it actually shows exactly what that feeling is, so we the people from this generation can relate to how it was for the people back then to experience all of that, the same way we experience it now when we go to a popular club in Las Vegas, or any big ostentatious house party in LA.
To have a context, the 20s, was the one period 100 years ago between two world wars were people just wanted to forget the 1918 pandemic, and didn't want to worry about the dark future they were all feeling it was coming.
So they party all the time to the point that it was so hardcore that a provision had to take place because it was literally causing an economic recession. At least that's the official version, but it is also the most poetic, and to an extent, very accurate.
If I have to describe this movie's particular genre I would put it in the music video category. It really does feel like a 2 hour 23 minutes long music video.
It is not a musical by any means, but every scene is cut in such a way that they could easily put any popular culture song on top, and it would work perfectly for it.
To me it is the movie's biggest strength because not only it helps in telling the story in a more immersive way, it also allows you to be able to watch it multiple times without getting bored. There are not many movies that can do that.
I think I have lost the count of how many times I have watched this movie or at least scenes from it because there is a level of trance and hypnosis going on with the use of colors, and the entire acting choreography of the movie.
In a personal level I relate a lot with this movie maybe because I went to High School in Rhode Island and seeing those New York Long Island bay houses brings back memories of those neighborhoods because they are very similar still.
At the same time I relate to the way people would make parties out of boredom in the summer, and spontaneously come out with any excuse to go wild. It is just how people still are till this day.
There is another particular scene that I don't want to spoil, but I want to mention that is important, and that is the strong personality frame battle between Tom and Jay where they are frame battling for Daisy.
That's how frame battles in real life work as well, the one with the strongest frame always wins the girl regardless of whatever history they had together.
Tom knew that, he had experience, and he had game, he demonstrated it when he got that actress at the party, and even with his lover. He knew he can take on Jay, make him react, and that Jay's Aristotle Onassis poor to rich background wasn't enough to hold against that.
As soon as Jay fell on Tom's frame, as soon as he reacted, he lost the girl, Jay was done. Nothing in Daisy's survival intinct nature would ever allow her to be happy with Jay after that, and the whole turmoil is what lead to the accident.
I find this scene to be perfectly delivered in the movie, making a very strong ending, and after playing with various cinematographic dances including the scenes of the meeting between Jay and Daisy, it really makes the movie incredibly memorable.
I own the 3D physical version, and it is the best version in my opinion because it brings the immersion to the next level, and again the use of colors, and the overall style of the movie makes it even more engaging this way. I highly recommend it. Without a doubt this is one of my favorite movies of the decade.
