The Wolf of Wall Street is Martin Scorsese‘s latest film and what a brilliant one it is! Starring the brilliant Leonardo DiCaprio and the hilarious Jonah Hill – what could have gone wrong?
Fiona and I went to see this extremely long film a few weeks ago and since then I’ve had many different discussions with people about what they thought of the film. It’s proved divisive to say and the least and when I say that I’ve heard mixed reviews, I mean it in the truest sense of the term – this film is serious Marmite stuff. I’ve seen Facebook posts saying “The Wolf of Wall Street is a banging film!!!” (meaning it’s a really good film). But then, talking to some other people, usually over the age of 35, they seem to think it is glorifying drug use (with the exception of Fiona).
Drink, drugs, cars, women and money are what this film is all about! When we first meet Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) he is just starting out on Wall Street. He doesn’t want to take part in the drugs and drinking of his co-workers; he just wants to make his wife happy… Oh how things change! His eccentric mentor Mark Hanna, played by a very skinny Matthew McConaughey instructs him that to survive in the job and to be successful you need to take drugs and have loads of sex. This advice seems to be controversial but true to some extent, at least in our protagonist’s case!
The film is very funny, which is to be expected with Jonah Hill having a main part in it. There is one particularly priceless scene in which all the guys who run ‘Stratton Oakmont‘ have done waaaay too many ludes. An inebriated Jonah Hill can barely speak when he suddenly gets an idea that he just has to express. Unable to find the words, he proceeds to slobber on the pool table and bang his shoe in fury. The scene then ends in Hill gawping at a beautiful woman and pleasuring himself in front of a party full of people, leading to his wife slapping him and him rolling around on the floor with an unexpected hard on… The Wolf of Wall Street is obviously not child friendly!
Jordan Belfort’s whole business ethic is basically to screw over as many people as you can to get rich, because if someone is stupid enough to invest in thousands of penny-shares then they deserve to be screwed over! This means his whole business is corrupt and it’s only a matter of time before the FBI are on his case. He has to start making some hard decisions: step down, turn people into the feds or try get the FBI on side – something which he quickly discovers is not going to happen.
With this film being partly about women he obviously marries one of the most beautiful on the face of the earth (Margot Robbie) yet he manages to cheat on her with so many other women that I couldn’t possibly tell you how many we see. Even Joanna Lumley gets in on the action. Naomi (Jordan’s wife) describes her aunt as “just so British” and then, when we finally meet Aunt Emma, it’s Lumley, the very woman who epitomises Britishness. Yet, despite her wholesome demeanour, she opens Leo’s dodgy Swiss bank account and even kisses him when they both become confused as to whether or not they are propositioning one another…. HE LITERALLY TRIES TO SLEEP WITH EVERYONE! But let’s be honest, when you look like that, you wouldn’t be concerned about being turned down would you?!
Something I really liked about this film is that there seems to be no such thing as time. It starts half way through the film, goes back to 1987 and from then on it could be at any point in time. There’s nothing worse than having the date come up at the bottom of the screen and having to constantly be figuring out where you are! The Wolf of Wall Street just relies on the costumes to show the time movement and I found this very effective.
Although, I can understand why people seem to think it glorifies drug use – there are some highly entertaining scenes where people are rolling around on the floor or trying to drive cars – in the end the consequences that Jordan Belfort faces show the harsh truth of all his extreme misbehaving when he ends up without his family and in prison. Sorry to ruin the ending but you kinda know it’s coming anyway!
Fiona and I loved the film and discussed it over a glass of champagne whilst waiting for the taxi! I hope by now you’ve all been to see it!