1. The Visuals
Unsurprisingly, The Great Gatsby's strongest element is its visual aesthetic. This is Baz Luhrmann after all. He will be (and has been) accused of style over substance, but Luhrmann remains one of the most visually arresting directors currently working. He has an eye for opulence, creating stunning visual textures and environments that are near works of art on their own. Each frame seems meticulously poured over to create the perfect canvas, and though his editing is uncharacteristically shoddy in places - offering hammer-blows to stamp narrative points down, rather than offering the audience a chance to find the meaning themselves - his artistic agenda cannot be faulted. The opening sequence - up to around the 25 minute mark, in fact - is a whirling fever dream of opulence and over-indulgence; the perfect answer to the spirit of the 1920s, and the perfect visual journey to reflect Nick Carraway's defection from the mundanity of normalcy to being utterly spell-bound by the excesses of the era, as well as intoxicated by the mystical presence of Gatsby. It is impossible to resist the pull of those sequences, and they are as grand as Luhrmann has ever created, but his conviction to painting beautiful scenes goes beyond those grand moments, and without being overly critical, the staging of some shots is as strong and as statement-making as you see in music videos. And now on to the most disappointing elements of The Great Gatsby...