I haven't seen The Great Gatsby yet, but my husband and my two older children really enjoyed it. And yes, they were all quite familiar with the book.
Having said all that, here are some review excerpts - a mixed bag, indeed! But I don't see that as negative - on the contrary. Movies are art based on books but never word for word. That's why there can be two movies based on True Grit, each amazing and true to the book by Charles Portis, but with different endings. That's why there can be five versions of Pride and Prejudice, or countless versions of Sherlock Holmes. No director can please all of the people - he merely films his vision of the material.
From Muse
The Great Gatsby is very successful in conveying the seedy glitz of New York City in the roaring 20s, which is the setting for Fitzgerald’s classic novel. Anyone who has read the book and saw the film can attest to the fact that it stayed very true to the plot: Nick Carraway (Maguire), a shy, would-be writer is drawn to Long Island by the lure of Wall Street and its promise of riches. He becomes fascinated with his neighbour, Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio), an enigmatic millionaire with a taste for hosting extravagant parties.
Through Carraway’s relationships with his beautiful cousin Daisy (Mulligan), her cheating husband Tom Buchanan (Edgerton), and Gatsby himself, he bears witness to the sordid going-ons of the super rich of Long Island.
Ron Charles in Washington Post
Twelve hours after surviving the cultural desecration that is “The Great Gatsby,” it hit me: Baz Luhrmann’s movie version could be the next “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
. . . Every time Daisy speaks, yell, “Her voice is full of money!” and throw Monopoly bills at the screen.
When Gatsby tells Nick, “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can,” sing, “Let’s do the time warp again!”
The Jane Austen Book Club
Just ignore the critics. Go and enjoy the spectacle that is The Great Gatsby. It was a pleasant surprise, after reading some fairly critical reviews.
The costumes were breathtaking. I mean truly breathtaking. Along with the sets. I particularly liked the way they dressed the little house next door to Gatsby's mansion where Nick Carraway lived. Arts and Crafts decor done to perfection. Makes me want to see it again.
New York Times Movie Review
“Gatsby” is not gospel; it is grist for endless reinterpretation. Mr. Luhrmann’s reverence for the source material is evident. He sticks close to the details of the story and lifts dialogue and description directly from the novel’s pages. But he has also felt free to make that material his own, bending it according to his artistic sensibility and what he takes to be the mood of the times. The result is less a conventional movie adaptation than a splashy, trashy opera, a wayward, lavishly theatrical celebration of the emotional and material extravagance that Fitzgerald surveyed with fascinated ambivalence.
The Age
This thoroughly modern reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald's great 1925 American novella is radically different in size, shape and tone to its source material. It also contrasts starkly with its cinematic predecessors, all of which had their own issues.
. . . Ultimately, though, what brings this Gatsby crashing down to Earth isn't its blatant disregard for the nuances so prevalent in Fitzgerald's book (which Luhrmann says he hasn't physically read), nor its overly earnest cravings for attention.
Rather, it's the nagging feeling that after 142 minutes, this Gatsby feels as disposable as the socialite parasites who inhabit the great man's world. Luhrmann understandably wants his Gatsby to be great, but he has inadvertently reminded us of one very simple truth: the Great American Novel belongs precisely where it still lives on, 90 years after its inception – on the page.
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