stew .. the movie was great some people are just born haters, loved the narration and top of the shelf acting from Gatsby wll gve it a 7/10

Regarding the words on the screen, I think it was meant as a kind of celebration of the novel itself. For better or worse, the star of the fim is Fitzgerald's novel.

My main issue with the film is that its stylistic elements are so big and bombastic, they make the story seem trivial in comparison. Like the scene in the apartment in New York when Gatsby pressures Daisy to tell Tom she never loved him. This should have been the key scene in the film, but instead it feels relatively minor.

the introduction to Tom Buchannon (Edgerton) was ridiculous and weird, tossing the football around, rushing at him, he was like Leguizamo for Luhrmann for a little bit … but when they let him settle down Edgerton was great!

the car scenes were too over the top ridiculous … I know he wants to show them as reckless, but those scenes were ridiculous.

Oh, also, I hated that the sets were largely computer generated so that Luhrmann could zoom in very quickly. Everything looked too fake, until he slowed the fuck down and the camera showed their world.

Most of your complaints in this article are criticisms of things that exist in the source material.

I re-read the book the week before the film came out and found the movie to be surprisingly faithful to the book. (Framing device aside). Most of the dialogue is lifted word for word. The only scene that really stood out to me in the film was when Gatsby and Daisy sneak away at one of his parties and talk under the trees. Maybe I am forgetting some version of this scene in the book but it seems to me this would be a complete construct since Nick (our narrator) was not there to witness this secret meeting.

I had no problem with the text on screen or the visual style of the film. It looked like a Baz Luhrmann film, which are very wild and collage-like. It's been a long time since I saw his Romeo + Juliet but I seem to recall many similar techniques and devices in that as well. His is either the 4th or 5th film adaptation of "The Great Gatsby," so why not deliver what is promised with a Baz Luhrmann film? I wasn't expecting to see a Merchant Ivory style production or something similar to the Robert Redford version.

It's interesting how many reviews of the film mention its shallowness. It's almost as if their reviewing the novel, which is itself a shallow story about shallow, destructive people.

I do think you're spot-on about the problem of tonal wonkiness. When it doesn't work, it spectacularly doesn't work. Still, you have to admit that Luhrmann puts himself at greater risk than any other filmmaker. He swings for the fences over and over. When he misses, he's liable to lose his balance and fall to the ground. But when he connects it's a no-doubter. It's kind of fun to enjoy (and analyze) the ride.

Carroway's character, and Macguirre's portrayal, was frustrating. For the first twenty minutes– especially during the "sanatorium" scenes, I was convinced he was poorly cast. I thought he rebounded nicely, but did not enjoy the beginning of the film.