The last big production of The Great Gatsby was in 1974 and starred Robert Redford as the awkward but admired aristocrat Jay Gatsby and Mia Farrow as the shallow Daisy Buchanan (Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd starred in a smaller production of the story).  The actual star of the book and narrator of the original F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, the character Nick Carroway, was played by a youthful and energetic Sam Waterston in the 1974 film.

This Christmas, Leonardo DiCaprio will play Gatsby and genre favorite Carey Mulligan will play against type as a somewhat ethereal Daisy.  Ex-Spider-man actor Tobey Maguire will play Nick.

Here’s the first trailer for the film:

The first thing that jumps out is the lack of the defining component of the roaring twenties–jazz.  So whereas we see a lot of nice art deco components in the trailer, it doesn’t immediately conjure up 1920s, Fitzgerald’s book, and prohibition.  Hopefully this is just the Hollywood standard of putting up a preview with unrelated music, trying to get us caught up in the craziness of the story and the time period.  We haven’t seen a big historical film based in the 1920s for a while–maybe Chicago?

The cars look good–hard to fake that, but the costumes seem a little bit modernized to our eyes.  It will be interesting to see what the costume designer is going for here.  Maybe an updated feel?

Either way, we hope it’s a good stepping stone to more roles for Mulligan.