Vanity Fair (Full Screen)

In a culture obsessed with status, Becky Sharp, beautiful, clever and poor, is determined to earn her place in society. While the wickedly amoral Becky manipulates the men around her, the vagaries of fate leave her innocent childhood friend, Amelia Sedley
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 31-MAY-2005
Media Type: DVD

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