Vanity Fair (2004) (Widescreen)
by Mira Nair
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Angelica Mandy, Gabriel Byrne, Kate Fleetwood, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Ruth SheenDirector: Mira Nair
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); German (Original Language); French (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 141 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-02-01
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Vanity Fair (2004) (Widescreen)
Movie Review: Misplaced film adaptation
Summary: 2 Stars
I read the novel about six years ago, when I was fresh out of high school, and I was curious to see how the movie stacked up. It's cases like these that the say is true that the book is always better than the movie--especially when the book in question is a classic. Of course, you can't always expect the movie to quite stack up to the book, but I must say that I was disappointed by this adaptation.
Reese Witherspoon plays Becky Sharpe, the orphan girl who aspires to rise higher than her station in life. She then spends time with her friend Amelia's Sedley's family, along with Amelia's fianc?e, the arrogant George Osborne (played by a beautiful but miscast Jonathan Rhys Myers). Later, Becky goes to be the governess for the Crawleys, where she meets Rawdon and runs away with him. Becky's tale gets overshadowed in the second half of both the novel and the movie as Napoleon threatens to invade.
The exoticness of India and the bucolic setting of England make fine contrasts for one another, and the costumes in this period piece are beautiful (though oddly enough, in this movie, fashions don't change from the 1810s to the 1830s, and the characters don't seem to age much, either). But the actors seem a little too modern at times (especially Reese Witherspoon). The tone of Thackeray's novel was sarcastic at times, and the character of Jos Sedley was so ridiculous that he was actually pathetic. Here, he's just another bland, boring character. George Osbourne was much more malicious in the novel. It's a very watered-down version of the book, especially since Becky in this movie is shown to be a sympathetic character. And it just doesn't work. Through this movie, the whole point of the novel was missed out on completely.
Summary of Vanity Fair (2004) (Widescreen)
The corsets and high waists of the 19th century meet the lush colors and visual splendor of India in Vanity Fair, a classic novel translated into modern celluloid by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding). The very contemporary Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde, Election) at first seems to hit the wrong note as Becky Sharp, an orphaned girl who rises to the heights of society using her quick wits and feminine wiles. But as Vanity Fair unfolds, the movie's tone embraces both period decor and modern attitudes, searching for a bridge that will carry us more deeply into a different time. It isn't wholly successful--the movie's end wraps things up awkwardly--but some scenes achieve a surprising and vivid immediacy, in particular one in which Becky's gambler husband (elegant James Purefoy) catalogues his worth for her before going off to the Napoleonic battlefields; love and pragmatism fuse with heartbreaking results. --Bret FetzerAction & Adventure DVD Video
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