Ol' Baz Sure Can Throw a Party Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby isn't F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby, not in the story and not in the character, or at least not entirely. It's a hell of a party for significant sections of its overall running time, but it shies away from the characters too much, and that also means that the performances are often more style than substance. It's hard for actors as good as these not to perform well, and so they often do, but not to the best effect, which, I think, is down to the writing and the directing. Luhrmann captures what would have been the spectacle of Gatsby's ambition, and the undercurrents that he kept hidden, and, in the end, the undertow that was his undoing, but it's plasticised, too much of a film of a film by a great fan and student of the films of the forties. You can't make a musical of Gatsby, and I think that's where this movie ends up. Plus, we should have gone for the 3D option. Even in 2D you're very aware of the 3D effects, in the long pull-back shots that bring the foreground forward and push the background back. I don't know what that's called, but in those and many other shots, the effect would have been stronger with the glasses.