Yes, yes, yes I understand Daisy is a cypher. Well less a cypher and more of a McGuffin. And Cary Mulligan is a beautiful McGuffin. A beautiful, blond (if not icy) McGuffin that Hitchcock himself would be proud of.
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And yet her beauty cannot carry the movie when it is the vessel for such empty ineptitude. Why does out Leo pine for her so? I understand, truly I do, the idolization of a memory. The fictional personification of perfection you carry in your head, and which drives you towards success. But when confronted with the very real and very vacuous reality, one adjusts. Daisy is trophy wife personified. And when it is clear she desires no more than that - why does our Leo / Gatsby care anymore. To win? No, we must believe he will do most anything to get ahead, and that means cutting your loses every now and then.
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Perhaps in this, the book was better. Perhaps the ideal of Daisy can be carried out in a slim volume, but not in the 2D (or in this case 3D) reality of visualization. Perhaps our dream of the perfect woman cannot survive the transition to flesh and blood, even on screen.
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But why can't Leo/Gatsby (who reminded me of a young Orson Wells - except Orson Wells would have transformed the "old sport" into something more mantra-ish and less literal) get past Daisy when she so obviously fails to live up to his memory? When she is so obviously limited; less afraid of losing everything that she is afraid of hurting anyone's feelings from loved one to distant cousin to husband - and so she ends up destroying everything through paralysis of inaction.
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I can think of only crude sexual explanations by which she has all and sundry transfixed, and these jokes, while no doubt funny, have no currency in this musing.
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No, Daisy is an artificial plot point designed to give Gatsby his comeuppance. And so we come to the inherent production code problem with this movie. Transgression of social norms must be punished. And not just a slap on the wrist, but the ultimate punishment. Loss of first love, then loss of fortune, then loss of life. And everyone can cheer as the rich (the better people) move on and the poor (less deserving of happiness, joy and even love) learn their place.
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