Martin Scorsese’s film is a 3-hour carnival of consumption. It is the Great Gatsby on speed, or rather ‘Quaaludes’. It is set in the 1980s and 90s and follows the career of Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) the real-life broker who traded vastly inflated stocks, made millions, and squandered it on drugs, fast cars, and prostitutes before finally succumbing to the long arm of the FBI. It is brash, loud, and not for the easily offended (it has over 500 ‘F**ks!’ in it) and don’t expect analysis because the film is self-consciously superficial. This is because it is a satire. It depicts the natural trajectory of an unchecked testosterone-fuelled trading floor from climax to self-destruction. They beat their chests and drag their knuckles and consume so much they end up consuming themselves.
The film seduces the audience with its technicolour hedonism so that you can see just for a moment what it would be like to be obscenely rich and to abandon all principles. DiCaprio is the living, breathing embodiment of amorality from the $26 000 spent on expenses in one night to the reaction to Aunt Emma’s death, ‘she’s dead honey; she’s not going anywhere’. Birth, marriage, divorce, death, jail; it’s all met with the same blank expression or flippant voiceover. Don’t be fooled by it though, it takes depth to be this shallow. DiCaprio’s skill is clearest in the domestic scenes and in his portrayals of drug taking. His mercurial ability to take you to the brink of sympathy only to undercut it with some impeccably timed comedy is one very good reason to see the film. You can’t love him but you can’t hate him either and like the D.I. you want to be at his party.
Still of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street. Photo by Photo credit: Mary Cybulski. © 2013 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
The exaggeration of the Wall Street world makes it like a certificate 18 cartoon but with real people. It’s an exhilarating, thrill-seeking adventure. If there is a message, it’s that ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ but that doesn’t matter because we’re all too busy having fun. Aren’t we?
- © British Journal of General Practice 2014
