They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and people, and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness.

Frenetic energy gushed everywhere in this film, creating such a motion sickness that I’m surprised they didn’t supply barf bags to the people in the audience. Sadly, some of the imagery was indeed clever and could have worked if it had been used sparingly and as a thematic spice, but instead it drenched the film in a stylized vomit that obscured the entire point of the story. In short, the signal-to-noise ratio in this movie might make your head explode.

Although Luhrmann presents a fair amount of the plot from the novel, it’s like reading the Cliff Notes version. The characters act out famous scenes, recite memorable lines, but in the end it’s all devoid of meaning. I felt sorry for Leonardo and Carey who were fine actors desperately seeking an equally fine director — at least a director who understood the definition of subtlety.