Vanity Fair (Widescreen) | Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai

Vanity Fair (Widescreen) | Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai | The Unsinkable Becky Sharp

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Vanity Fair (Wides...

	Vanity Fair (Widescreen) Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai Universal Studios, 2005 average customer review:based on 112 reviews view larger image
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Vanity Fair

If there's one thing I'm getting tied of it's the old the-movie's-not- exatly-like-the-book complaint. Of course not. If every movie was like the book they would all be unbearably long and BORING. Artistic license must be taken, and allowed by the viewing public. You purists most learn to enjoy movies based on books for what they are.

I love this movie. I'm glad Reese Witherspoon made Becky a more likeable character. She's still plenty "bad" enough.

Bravo, Reese!! And everyone connected with this film.

The Unsinkable Becky Sharp

As the story opens in London in 1802, we meet Becky Sharp, a poor but spirited little girl. She is soon orphaned and sent to be a servant in a posh girls' school. She acquires a good education and is determined to climb the social ladder, starting as a governess, then marrying a promising Army officer. She spends the next twenty years relentlessly pursuing her dream of being a lady.

This movie is beautiful and lavish, everything that a good period piece should be. I haven't read the book, so I just enjoyed the movie on its own merits. Reese Witherspoon does a great job with the English accent and plays the Scarlet O'Hara-ish Becky with loads of charm and brains. She really is irresistible as well as formidable, and gives an Oscar-worthy performance. The costumes and sets are opulent, with lots of striking orange fabrics.

There are plenty of ups and downs for Becky and the plot is never dull. I love period movies and this one had all the required triumphs and tragedies,romance and spectacle, to make it very satisfying.

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Enjoy it for period style and romance, not as a transcript of the novel

As is the norm for new millennium films taken from century old novels, this verion of "Vanity Fair" does not do much to portray its source novel in any significant way. It fails in that regard in the same way the newest "Pearl Harbor" failed in dispatching the real world story about the outbreak of World War II.

Where does it succeed? While a historic and literary bust, the film is a feast for the eye and senses taht will satisfy you with its lush production, wonderful costumes, invigorating period music, and strong character portrayals by its two leading ladies. These are the qualities that carry this film and make it what it is -- an engaging slice of life taken from a famous novel.

Gabriel Byrne, the biggest name in the cast, either is poorly directed or is a poor actor in this movie. No one will confuse Reese Witherspoon with Meryl Streep as an actress. Witherspoon lacks the depth of character a great actress would bring to the role of Becky Sharp. Still, she elicits a nice performance of the upwardly mobile young woman whose fall from grace is expected and occurs on cue.

As a fan of the music of Franz Josef Haydn, I can tell you Witherspoon is not a professional singer. Her one turn with a Hadyn song, toward the end fo the film, shows she can carry a tune but is consistently late in entries with a strong tendency to sing behind the beat. These are not the qualities of a fine period singer circa 1805.

But, alas, she looks wonderful doing it and that is, by my perspective, the summary of this film: it looks wonderful all the time. All the young men in this flick are beautiful and have their hair done like Beethoven's in his famous young portrait. The film is sumptuous eye candy of a time in life that seems very romantic to us today...when it probably was anything but romantic in reality.

So enjoy the consistent eye candy production and try to follow the inane script. You'll figure out what's going on all the time even if the script doesn't help you along the way. It is a morality tale, after all, that fulfills the development you see initiated in the movie's first minutes.

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Thackery light

This version of Thackery's Vanity Fair is a visually stunning production, but it lacks a real understanding of the novel. Nair makes sure that people understand the roots of england's wealth is dervied from its colonial exploitation and the exploitation of the working class. She makes sure that viewer sees the hard work at the base of England's success. Fine in its place, but it has no sense of the humour and seering intelligence at work in Thackery's novel. The actors give their all and the settings and swirl of colour is impressive throughout. I did like the Bollywood style dance that jumps out in the middle of the film. Nonethelees, I really think that Vanity Fair is one novel that defies translation on the screen.

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