VANITY FAIR
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Focus Features
Grade: B+
Directed by: Mira Nair
Written by: Matthew Fault, Mark Skeet, Julian Fellowes
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, James Purefoy, Romola Garai,
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Gabriel Byrne, Jim Broadbent, Bob
Hoskins, Rhys Ifans
Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 8/23/04
"Nature Boy," one of the great hit songs of the 1940's featured
at the beginning of Joseph Losey's movie "The Boy With Green
Hair," has this trite but true moral: "The greatest thing/ You'll ever
learn/ Is just to love/ And be loved in return." This sentiment,
seconded by the filthy rich Lord Steyne, forms a leading conceit
in the lavish costume drama "Vanity Fair" directed by Mira Nair
("Monsoon Wedding," "Salaam Bombay"). Within its generous
one hundred thirty-five minutes, "Vanity Fair," adapted by
Matthew Fault, Mark Skeet, and Julian Fellowes from William
Makepeace Thackery's 19th century novel of the same name,
evokes the theme of social climbing as well as that of love. We
can see how easily the novel and, by extension, this successful
adaptation, is a classic: its themes are universal since, after all,
aside from the anomalous 1960's and early seventies in America,
social climbing has been our favorite sport. While our
Constitution forbids titles of nobility and while we in the U.S. treat
any mention of social strata as "class warfare," the poor strive to
win the lottery and the middle class to amass great quantities of
toys, while the doyens of New Money dabble in the game of
rising to our own copy of European nobility called Society.
The film, like the Thackeray novel, is anchored by Becky
Sharp, here played with considerable depth by Reese
Witherspoon. In the process of climbing the social ladder from a
penniless orphan to governess and then, by marriage to the
dashing soldier Rawdon Crawley (James Purefoy) and patronage
from the wealthy but lovelorn Steyne, she mixes however
tentatively with the great lords and ladies of London, Hampshire
and points between.
The story opens near the turn of the 19th century on Rebecca
"Becky" Sharp (Reese Witherspoon), born of a poverty-stricken
painter and now deceased French mother who, when orphaned,
is educated by Miss Pinkerton's Academy. Though Becky learns
French and social graces, she feels an emotional gap due to the
lack of kindness of any of her teachers and longs for a better life
than her birthright would ordinarily allow. As a governess in
Hampshire to the children of the eccentric Sir Pitt Crawley (Bob
Hoskins), she impresses rich aunt Matilda (Eileen Atkins), who
invites her to move with her to London, once again meeting her
childhood friend Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai). When Becky
marries handsome heir Rawdon Crawley, she and her new
husband are cast out by Matilda. Having served in the war
against Napoleon, Rawdon returns to a home without money.
However Becky has long benefitted from the patronage of Lord
Steyne (Gabriel Byrne), a gentleman who, charmed by Becky
from the time the latter was an eight-year-old girl, continues to
funnel money her way to the consternation of Becky's husband.
Thackeray subtitled "Vanity Fair" "A Novel Without a Hero."
By virtue of Reese Witherspoon's fine performance as the film's
anchor, we see that virtually no one in her circle is without flaws.
However likable Becky may be to her admirers such as her
husband, Matilda (before the marriage), and the Marquess
Steyne, she combines intelligence and beauty with self-
centeredness and grasping. What Ms. Witherspoon fails to
convey adequately, however, is one major point made by the
novel: that Becky stands apart from the society she embraces
because she sees the humor and ridiculousness of the men and
women of a middle-class England where pride, wealth and
ambition are the leading virtues.
The world that director Nair depicts is not quite the same as
that shown by Roger Michell in his 1995 adaptation of the Jane
Austen novel of the same time period "Persuasion," wherein a
young woman has never recovered from her break with a
dashing sailor. That understated film evokes a society with
relations so repressed that the mere touch by a man of a
woman's hand could cause quivers of joy and confusion in the
hearts of both. By contrast, Nair's movie depicts an ample
number of attempted seductions and hints of affairs: in fact, in
one situation, Becky, trying to ward off an aggressive advance by
her benefactor, Steyne, is caught in the act of embrace by
Becky's husband.
Understated could hardly be the term to describe this film, shot
by Declan Quinn principally in the south of England most notably
the city of Bath, and in India. Under the bright sun, India, colorful
to a fault in free-flowing costumes and exotic music, supplies a
graphic contrast to the drab country on the other side of the
world, portraying a culture so different and relaxed when
compared with the mother country that we do not wonder at
Becky's ultimate ambition to join yet another man in his voyage to
the Southern Asian country.
Mira Nair does add a contemporary touch that Thackeray could
not have considered, leading us to wonder whether we could
judge Witherspoon's Becky to be a feminist. Surely she is not
the withering flower that describes her best friend, Amelia
Sedley) who, for reasons unknown was able to attract a husband
in George Osborne (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers)--who desires her so
much that he is willing to sacrifice a potential inheritance from his
wealthy father (Jim Broadbent). At Witherspoon portrays her,
Becky is ambitious enough, willing to work for her keep, doing a
terrific job as governess-teacher to children but unable to make
the kind of life of which she dreams or the equality she seeks
with the lords and ladies of her country. She makes us in the
audience realize that there's a thin line between unscrupulous
grasping and praiseworthy ambition and, indeed, she may have
married Rawdon Crawley for money and position but when the
chips are down, she tearfully and convincingly conveys her love
for the brave and dashing soldier.
Because the thick novel, with dozens of characters, is whittled
down for cinematic portrayal, there's much we can't see, for
example, Miss Pinkerton, the snobbish mistress of the academy
for girls at which Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp meet, dislikes
Becky intensely. Miss Swartz, the rich wooly-haired student at
Miss Pinkerton's School, pays double tuition because of her
immense wealth, but we see her only briefly when the Crawley
family tries to marry off Rawdon to her. And where is John
Sedley, Amelia's father, a middle-class English merchant of
grasping, selfish ways who is forced to move from Russell
Square to a cottage kept by Clapps, a former servant of the
Sedleys?
Hopefully the film will encourage a new audience for the 19th
century novel, filled with the sort of social climbing that informed
the 1980's in America. This "Vanity Fair" does a handsome job
in portraying people who are not good, who are not meant to be
good, but who may realize that goodness often goes hand in
hand with stupidity and that cleverness is often knavery.
Rated PG-13. 135 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten
at harveycritic@cs.com
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