MOVIE: Vanity Fair

Lutheran, The, Oct 2004 by Brussat, Frederic, Brussat, Mary Ann

MOVIE

Vanity Fair is an exquisite screen adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel as a morality play with great relevance for our times. In America today, the "winning class" enjoys great prosperity and all the perks that come with power and prestige. Everybody else, it seems, wants to join their ranks.

This story, set in the 1850s, depicts the attempts of Becky Sharp (Reese Witherspoon), the daughter of a starving English artist and a French chorus girl, to transcend her humble beginnings and gain access to the glittering high society of Regency England. Her climb begins with a job as a governess for a country gentleman (Bob Hoskins), where she charms his sister (Eileen Atkins), who takes her to London, and his son Rawdon (James Purefoy), who marnes her. Later, an art collector (Gabriel Byrne) becomes her benefactor, seeing that she is able to enter the parlors and parties of high society, which turns out to be much different than the world she imagined.

Becky's yearning is carried into our hearts by the sympathetic performance of Witherspoon, who proved her acting mettle in Election and the Legally Blonde comedies. She puts us in touch with the envy that lies in wait, threatening to overtake all of us. She also reminds us that we have a social climber inside who is never satisfied with what we have and always craves more (Focus Features-PG-13, some sensuality, partial nudity, brief violent image).

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