| Vanity Fair (2004) (Full Screen) | 
 enlarge | Director: Mira Nair
Actors: Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai, James Purefoy, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gabriel Byrne
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $1.65
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Avg. Customer Rating:  112 reviews
Sales Rank: 28157
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 141
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: D26246D
ISBN: 1417027460
UPC: 025192624629
EAN: 9781417027460
ASIN: B0006FO8ES
Theatrical Release Date: September 1, 2004
Release Date: February 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Unsatisfied with her lower-class birthright beautiful calculating becky sharp is resolved to conquer high society by any means necessary employing all of her wit guile and sexuality to move her way up. Adapted from the classic novel. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 08/22/2006 Starring: Reese Witherspoon Jonathan Rhys-meyers Run time: 141 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Mira Nair
Amazon.com
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 Fetzer
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| Customer Reviews: Read 107 more reviews...
Historically interesting January 2, 2009
Beautifully photographed. The historical elements were what I found interesting. The story itself meandered a bit like Barry Lyndon.
 Wonderful period piece November 27, 2008
I liked the movie alot. I love period movies and this is the third on my list.
 Misplaced film adaptation May 27, 2008
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 fiancee, 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.
Go Reese! April 29, 2008
Yes, they do make Becky too nice, but otherwise the movie's great! Lyrics from Tennyson's "Maud" anachronistic but very pretty!
Curry-Flavored Thackeray With an Incongruous Lead March 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In many ways, director Mira Nair (The Namesake) is a daring, imaginative choice to helm this 2004 film adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's classic novel of social mores in early 19th century England. However, the end result of her vision is on the whole, rather disappointing. What could have been an energetic distillation of the book's themes turns into a lengthy episodic movie suffering from poor pacing and softened characters. It is a feast for the eyes though, as it appears Nair is intent on bringing her native India into the film as much as possible from the brightly colored period costumes to the contemporary-looking exotic dance at the Marquess of Steyne's party (with very anachronistic Rai music in the background) to the happy ending atop an elephant in Jodhpur. All these references remain true to the Calcutta-born author's story, and actually they feed into the English imagination of what India meant to them at the time.
At the same time, the images are too overwhelming to make the basic story of Becky Sharp resonate as it should. Her evolution is the heart of the story, as she moves from finishing school outsider to resourceful governess to brave captain's wife to fallen woman in a casino. It's a long, rocky journey, almost too long for a 137-minute movie to bear as it turns out. Nair, however, also has a good handle on the comic banter among the characters, and it certainly helps that she has assembled a "Who's Who" of British stage and film in all the roles except the primary one. As Becky, Reese Witherspoon gives it a valiant effort and perfects her British accent to Gwyneth Paltrow's standards, but she seems to be channeling a hybrid of her Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) and her Tracy Flick (in Alexander Payne's Election) by way of Kate Winslet in Sense & Sensibility. When facing down her opponents in her climb upward, especially in the early scenes, the performance seems right. But when her character takes on Scarlett O'Hara dimensions in wartime suffering and acts of betrayal, she seems young and overwhelmed, and her reactions come across as too modern to be true to the character's evolution as intended.
This anomaly results in a Becky Sharp who is not so much an ambitious social climber but a plucky heroine for the underclasses, a textbook example of a Tony Robbins motivational seminar. This transformation may seem endearing to those looking for nicely wrapped tales of triumph against all odds, but it doesn't lend credibility to the more pointed satire and harsher criticisms that Thackeray had in mind when he wrote the book. For example, Becky's gambler husband, Rawdon Crawley, is really more of a ne'er-do-well whose departure in the story should be viewed somewhat as relief, but as played by James Purefoy, he is a romantic figure who is guilt-ridden over his failure to provide for his family. The change could have been acceptable were it not for the fact that his character is discarded in an almost matter-of-fact way. The same sketchy treatment is given to Becky's only friend, Amelia Sedley, played by Romola Garai, who is set up as a contrast to Becky and comes across as a wet rag for much of the story. But the film transforms her into a brave widow whose romantic resolution at the end strains credibility. Somehow Purefoy and Garai acquit themselves admirably regardless.
There are many fine performances in the smaller roles. Worth mentioning are Jim Broadbent as roguish George Osborne's unforgiving father, Bob Hoskins as the clownishly pitiable Sir Pitt; Gabriel Byrne as the territorially devious Marquess of Steyne, and Geraldine McEwan's helium-voiced Lady Southdown. Best of all is the mordantly witty Eileen Atkins, who seems to understand the tone of Thackeray's story better than anyone else, and lends a dotty authority to the role of Aunt Mathilde, serving as the primary catalyst of Becky's social escalation much to her later regret. Great acting aside, the film's length does have a wearing effect since the climax does not bear the emotional weight of everything that has gone before it, and unfortunately the plot strands get wrapped up much too quickly at the end to make the story truly resonate. That's a shame since there is so much creative energy obviously at work here. As for the extras on the 2005 DVD, the major inclusion is Nair's illuminating commentary, which focuses more on the technical aspects of the film. There are also two featurettes - the first is "Welcome to Vanity Fair", a behind-the-scenes look at the production that appears to be a marketing tool to convince viewers of the contemporary nature of the story, and the second "The Women of Vanity Fair", which focuses on Nair's largely female crew.
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