Hugh Thomson

This film really doesn't do justice to Fitzgerald's great novel. It manages to be both heavy and leaden and yet light and frothy and of little substance. To be fair many say that no film will ever do justice to 'The Great Gatsby'. If you want to understand The Great Gatsby - read the book.

Yawn. Interesting premise for a comedy. But the characters are lightweight and superficial. It's as if they have all sprung from a mail order catalogue - cheesy smiles, bodies without an inch of flab or tooth out of place and perfectly decorated apartments. Actually the only one of any interest is the mother of the central character - Peri Gilpin, known to most of us as 'Roz' in Frasier - a worldly wise and weary professional lady with a dry wit. Treat this film like one of those books in the fiction 'sale' pile at an airport bookshop and you won't be disappointed.

I love Palm Beach, the real Palm Beach, but didn't much like the film of that name at all. Its all really a rather lightweight piece of froth - pretty scenery, pretty homes, pretty yachts and aeroplanes, pretty restaurants and pretty actors who laugh, cry and hug in all the right places. It didn't say anything which isn't said in many other much better films. By all means watch the film if there is nothing else on TV and you don't feel like using the time to some other better advantage - if you don't expect much it will pass the time without too much discomfort.