Assuming Baz Luhrmann’s glitzy adaptation doesn’t stick any better than the ones from 1926, 1949, and 1974, why don’t we have a definitive movie version of The Great Gatsby?
At Critics At Large, Amanda Shubert argues that the closest we’ve come is Six Degrees of Separation, the 1993 film starring Will Smith in one of his earliest roles:
Guare’s approach to Fitzgerald’s material reveals that The Great Gatsby is actually a chamber drama that doubles as a comedy of manners. It’s about the hypocrisy of upper class life, with its indulgence and spectacle and its divine narcissism, a mise-en-scene from high comedy that’s perspective can only be fulfilled in tragic realism.
