Attempts to adapt famous novels to film is always a tough endeavor and this film just barely passes. Leo DiCaprio plays the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, a man who is always chasing what he can’t have and paying the price for it. In watching the film, the viewer comes to understand that’s its Jays greed for an idealized version of life that leads to his isolation from society. Jay does not take any initiative and leaves everyone else to figure out what he wants. While this is true to the novel, Gatsby in the film is left unexplored, naturally the movie has to cut parts of the book but I believe they missed the mark with his characterization and hardly developed Nicks at all. The best parts of the movie are the soundtrack and the aesthetics, which is unfortunate since the story is so deeply symbolic and interesting.