The Great Gatsby

Someone linked me to the trailer for The Great Gatsby (coming in December), and I was pretty thoroughly blown away. Like most people, I read the book in high school, but I think it's one of those works you can't quite appreciate until you're older. It doesn't walk you through the plot--you simply see events unfold through Nick's eyes, and have to connect them. Nonetheless, it's powerful, and at the end Nick's derision and sense of disgust is one of the most palpable feelings in modern literature.

The trailer is bold and beautiful, and makes some clear points (We're quoting lines from the book! See, we're being true to the source material. But here's some modern music, because this movie parallels modern fast living and self-destructive behavior!).

But I wonder how a movie can pull off the plot, because the appeal of the book isn't the love triangles, it's the pure narrative power. It's in the disillusionment of realizing how people behave, and that some people can never get what they truly want in life. All the high-octane living in the world can't buy you love.