How Great Is Gatsby?

About a year and a half ago, I reread The Great Gatsby.  I had forgotten what a grim story it is.  A few days ago, I watched online a preview for the new Gatsby movie.  I’m sure the movie will manage some of the darkness of the story, but the trailer, in comparison to the novel, was outrageous, over-the-top, ludicrously extravagant.  It made my decision not to see the movie.  So I was pleased to read this in Ta-Nehisa Coats’ wonderful blog: 

Maybe because of its title, and Fitzgerald's outsized persona, people think that The Great Gatsby has to be a big budget extravaganza. But the book actually reads like a French film or an American indie. It's not so much that Gatsby can't be filmed. It's that it can't be filmed by this Hollywood.