The 66th Cannes Film Festival began last night with a gala screening of Baz Luhrmann's much-promoted adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby .

Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays the title character, was on hand to wave at crowds gathered beneath grey Mediterranean skies. Pumped up with contemporary pop songs, edited at a furious pace, the indigestibly glossy film has – unusually for an opening film at Cannes – already gone on general release in the United States.

DiCaprio is well cast as the American dreamer who turns out to be less well-bred than he claims. But Luhrmann’s patented blend of bombast and camp spectacle (enhanced by eye-popping 3-D) is not well suited to an adaptation of such a delicately balanced American classic. Reviews have been lukewarm in the US, but box office has been strong.

"The truth is, it is a very tricky undertaking," DiCaprio told The Irish Times recently. "Everyone has their own verdict on The Great Gatsby . I can't tell you how many people have told me it's their favourite book of all time. There's not many projects you're a part of where people have that expectation going into it."

Luhrmann, whose Moulin Rouge! debuted in Cannes over a decade ago, admitted the lengthy production had taken its toll on his psyche. He recalled some advice an older Australian director once passed his way. "Peter Weir, when I was very young, said directing a film is the closest thing to war that there is," he said. "There are very few situations where one person has to make all the decisions. I thought: what's he talking about? But it is like that."

The real action kicks off today when the official competition begins with a screening of Jeune & Jolie , the latest from prolific French director François Ozon.

Palme d'Or
Other pictures competing for the Palme d'Or, the festival's biggest prize, include Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra, a study of Liberace featuring Michael Douglas; and Nicholas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives , that director's follow-up to the cult hit Drive .

Much press attention will also come the way of the Coen brothers' Inside LLewyn Davis . The American directors' latest work stars Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake in a comic drama set among the progenitors of the folk boom in 1960s Greenwich Village.

Irish interest manifests itself in the form of Ruairí Robinson's Last Days on Mars . The young director's debut feature – a science fiction drama starring Liev Schreiber – plays in the prestigious Directors' Fortnight strand on Monday.

“Being selected for the Directors’ Fortnight acknowledges that this is more of a n auteur piece than a slice of high-budget industrial cinema,” said Brendan McCarthy, producer of the picture. The festival ends with the awards ceremony on May 26th.