Starring: Reese Witherspoon, James Purefoy
Director: Mira Nair
Rated: PG
PERHAPS many people think that the film Vanity Fair has connections with the popular magazine of the same name.
Rather, the magazine takes us back to one of the great classic novels of 19th century English literature by William Thackeray. Thackeray, like Charles Dickens, was an expert purveyor of the three-volume novel, serialised in magazines.
How well can such sizable novels be transferred to the screen? And why should we see such films?
First, a religious note: Thackeray took the title of his novel Vanity Fair from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity …’
His novel offers an illustration of the futility and destructiveness of greed and ambition – the same message as that in the Gospels, ‘what does it profit to gain the whole world and lose one’s soul?’
Second, a social note: Thackeray took his readers back to the first decades of the 19th century, the years of the Napoleonic Wars, culminating in his defeat at Waterloo. These were the years of Regency England, a time of great public elegance, a beginning of a sense of empire, a time of belief that, despite poverty and oppression, anything was possible.
How can film-makers put all of this into a film which lasts two hours and 20 minutes, especially when a version of Vanity Fair of 70 years ago, Becky Sharp, ran for less than 90 minutes?
The task was entrusted to several writers, among whom was Julian Fellowes, the Oscar-winning writer of another vanity fair kind of story, Gosford Park.
The director is the Indian, Mira Nair, probably best known for her exuberant Monsoon Wedding. (The Indian connection is not accidental as Thackeray himself was born in Calcutta.)
And the film itself? It is one of those wonderful re-creations of a period that the British do so well.
It is quite lavish in sets and costume design, a delight for the eye.
It also has a particularly strong cast.
American Reese Witherspoon is cast as one of literature’s most lively and memorable characters, Becky Sharp. She comes across as a nicer person than in the novel but is quite convincingly English.
James Purefoy is her gambler husband, Rawdon, and Rhys Ifans (playing against type) is the faithful Captain Dobbin.
Audiences will delight in so many of the supporting characters – Eileen Atkins as Miss Crawley, Bob Hoskins as Pitt Crawley and Jim Broadbent as Mr Osbourne.
And, yes, the film contains the whole book. It may be only a sketch and outline sometimes, but it gets the spirit of the novel.
Not only does the audience feel it has lived through these times, but it understands this portrait of a society in transition, of the strengths and failings of human nature.
It is well worth a visit into this past.
