When I got to the screening of Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, I had one of those moments where I realized I’d fallen out of touch with “what teens like.” People were lined up around the whole building, holding flimsy fliers and emails probably given out from radio stations to lucky winners. For some reason, I hadn’t been expecting that, although I had when I went to the screening of Spring Breakers. It was like when I asked the kids at a daycare what they thought about Linsday Lohan and they gave me blank stares and told me to watch High School Musical.

While a certain sect of teenagers love F. Scott Fitzgerald, I’m guessing Baz Lurhmann was the real honey that had brought in so many viewers. I had to remind myself that I had seen his movie Moulin Rouge four times in theaters when I was 14, and that my sisters and I could not watch Romeo + Juliet enough growing up.

I was surprised when I first heard that Luhrmann was the director chosen to create yet another adaptation of The Great Gatsby. In my mind, the book is a snide social commentary with a bizarrely soap opera-like ending that seemed somewhat out of place. It’s a book you like for the cynicism and dialogue more than the romance and drama … right?

Nonetheless, I tried to summon my inner 14-year-old as much as possible while watching the film. After all, it was in 3D. This was a movie to eat up, not to overanalyze. If you put on this mindset, you will probably greatly enjoy The Great Gatsby. It has a soundtrack full of Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Lana del Rey. So what if it feels completely odd and out of touch amongst the 1920’s flapper parties? It’s music teens like (or do they? I clearly don’t know). All of the scenery is out-of-this-world fantastic and lush, fleshed out in 3D to look not-quite-coherent. The best way to describe it is that it looks like a pop-up book.

As the story kicked off, I was relieved that the movie had not completely left behind the dry humor of the book. The dialogue picks up some of the most potent lines and lets them sting a little, although it can’t resist overindulging in the book’s more lyrical lines, just as all classic-book-to-film adaptions do. (Howl was the fucking worst.) While Gatsby does have Luhrmann-like dance scenes and love montages, they never quite commit like they do in his other movies. They all felt artificial, as if to say, “don’t get attached. This isn’t one of those stories.” In that way, the movie feels uncanny at times.

The story starts with narrator Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) talking to a therapist after he is declared “morbidly alcoholic,” depressed and anxious. Your first thought will be “why is Tobey Maguire here?” He seems miscast, although everyone else suits their part quite well. This falsely sets you up to be curious about just how Nick became such a morbid alcoholic, but that’s not really part of the movie. We are supposed to assume this happens after … the stuff at the end that I won’t give away. (Also, The New Yorker has a good breakdown of why the Nick/therapist framing of the story is lame.)

The best things about this movie are Leonardo DiCaprio and the costumes. Leo looks fit and young again, despite his last decade or so as a tough guy with a steaky face. He’s back to his youthful romantic fragility, and the ladies like it. He brings a stuttering anxiety to the perfect Jay Gatsby, which is interesting although some might find it just Leo being a typical Leo character.

The costumes are something else altogether. I usually don’t find myself praising a movie for its costumes, but I’m going to risk sounding dumb here and do it. Apparently a team of 90 people were put to work creating those glittery, slinky flapper dresses. Watching the dazzling, technicolor parties in this movie reminds you just how black and white you usually imagine the past being.

Are hot Leo and pretty costumes enough to carry a movie? Well, it depends who you ask.

The movie never quite shakes the fact that The Great Gatsby is just not a Baz Luhrmann-type plot. It plays up all the most dramatic, romantic parts of that book as loudly as it can, but it just can’t materialize into anything as sincere and sweet as the love scenes in Moulin Rouge. It’s putting a square in a heart-shaped hole.

Despite any anger this movie will inevitably cause F. Scott Fitzgerald fans, it’s bound to enchant a lot of people. It’s beautiful, exciting, thought-provoking and fast-paced, if sloppy at parts. Like it or not, the 14-year-olds out there just might have to see it four times. And that’s ok, as long as it gets them reading.

–Becky Lang