Vanity Fair

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">Star cast: Reese Witherspoon, Gabriel Byrne, Eileen Atkins<br /> Director: Mira Nair<br /> Running at: Inox<br /> Rating: ***<br /><br /> <br />Anyone who could have made the emotionally wrenching Monsoon Wedding is forgiven all trespasses, including Vanity Fair.<br /> <br />Adapting a novel of the stature of William Thackeray''s Vanity Fair can be a plus pages into a 2 hour 20 minute film has taken its toll.Clearly, Nair''s forte is intimate human drama not turgid epics about Victorian mores and manners<br /> <br />Yes, for the most part the drama about Rebecca Sharp aka Becky (Reese Witherspoon) is engaging. Nair displays an instinctive humorous take when it comes to handling marital associations like she did in Monsoon Wedding. <br /> <br />After finishing school, Becky visits the house of her dear friend Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai) before taking on the job as a governess for the impoverished Sir Pitt Crawley(Bob Hoskins). Becky might have even married Amelia''s brother were it not for Amelia''s fiancé George Osborne(Jonathan Rhys- Meyers) who puts a spanner in the works.<br /> <br />All is not lost yet for Becky. But working as a governess is not her goal. She wants to marry fame and fortune. When she finds her match in Rawdon Crawley (James Purefoy), she does her best to ingratiate herself into the highest circles of English society. But Rawdon''s gambling losses bring financial ruin to himself and Becky. Only the intervention of the Marquis of Steyne (Gabriel Byrne), who has his own motives, saves them from losing everything.<br /> <br />Crawley leaves Becky, who is further sucked into a morass of deception and false suitors. Can there be a moral redemption for Becky at the end of it all? Was Becky Sharp really a foxy schemer or just a practical mind who allowed her head to rule<br />her heart? Will sanity finally prevail over vanity?<br /> <br />Some of the film''s best moments come when characters lash out at one another. Matilde, the aunt who Becky befriends is vicious when anyone is within her firing range. So is the sequence featuring Steyne at the dinner table where he verbally<br />savages his family. Eileen Atkins as the tart-tongued Matilde is brilliant, as is Gabriel Byrne as Marquis.<br /><br />For those who like leading ladies with spice and bite, Reese Witherspoon is unfortunately just not able to bare her fangs and embody the role of the social climbing Becky Sharp. William Thackeray wrote her - beautiful, cunning and so beguiling that no man could resist her. On that score, Witherspoon disappoints totally.<br /><br />Nair''s recreation of England is visually sumptuous. The ostentatious ballrooms, the evening gowns, and crisp military uniforms help to accentuate the ambience. The use of muted colours in certain sequences recreates the decrepitude of the time.<br />However, he token references to India and vignettes of bharat darshan ring hollow.<br /><br />For those who have read the book, none of the trenchant wit of Thackeray''s satire comes through in the film. Come back Mira, all (including Vanity Fair) is forgiven.Give us another Monsoon Wedding soon.<br /> <br />Classic take home Vanity Fair line: I had thought her a mere social climber. I see now she''s a mountaineer.<br /><br /><a href="http://movies.indiatimes.com/mailro/msid-947800,title-1.cms">CLICK HERE</a><span style="" font-family:="" ms="" shell="" dlg=""> </span><span style="" font-family:="" ms="" sans="" serif="" font-weight:="" bold="">to</span><span style="" font-family:="" ms="" sans="" serif=""> </span><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">write your own review</span><br /><br /></div> </div>