Film: Vanity Fair

[tamaranth]

Most enjoyable, but criminally under-publicised. We'd been meaning to see Vanity Fair for some time: it'd been advertised at the local UGC, and then the posters disappeared ... and, after a while, it seemed clear that it wasn't Coming Soon after all.

Flipping through Vindigo [not nasty phoneware but original free Palm-OS version) yesterday, I noticed it was still playing at the Odeon Wardour Street (which I'd never been to before: right down the Leicester Square end; third floor, via lifts; empty; very orange; £5!), and yesterday was the last day.

Interesting and credible cast. Reese Witherspoon (Becky Sharp) has gone up immensely in my estimation and held her accent all the way through: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers v. Pretty, and somehow they found a kid who's the spitting image of him, or possibly made one up with CGI: Eileen Atkins steals the show as a thoroughly acidic Matilda Crawley.

This is not a film of Thackeray's novel, but one based on it (even more loosely than Peter Jackson based his LOTR trilogy on Tolkien). Had to flip through plot-summary of novel to work out just how different it was. Probably most controversial: Becky's all redeem'd, manipulative and clever and emotionally chilly but nevertheless likeable and hard-done-by. Have only just noticed the tagline: all's fair in love and war. Thackeray no doubt rolling in grave. Ah well.

Mira Nair's a splendid director: Mychael Danna's soundtrack generally OK, though didn't care for his setting of 'Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal' (lyrics by Tennyson, b. 1809, so what is it doing at a party a few years after the Battle of Waterloo?): locations gorgeous: storyline slightly choppy, as there's a lot of plot to fit in. Worth a watch on DVD: I don't understand why it didn't do better.

Comments

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

That icon is FABULOUS, and so you.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why it didn't do better.

Perhaps because the distributors took an executive decision on how long it would run before it even opened, so it never got the chance to do better. I suspect this happens with a lot of films, especially modestly budgeted period dramas like (fr'instance) Stage Beauty: distributor gets cold feet about likely audience demographic, so books only a few screens for a short period; film gets good write up, but not much money allocated for publicity to begin with so nothing left to capitalise on this; film closes before audience can find it. Makes me very annoyed.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

I still have to see this one too. I'm very much in love with the few-years-ago mini-series version adapted by Andrew Grieves, so I'm a little wary of this one. I'm going to have to turn off my "but! but!" reaction and just enjoy it for what it is, I think.

Of course, I just finished reading Heyer's "An Infamous Army" so I'm also a wee bit dubious about Mira Nair's ability to deal with anything Waterloo-ish at anything like the level I've now come to like and expect.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of An Infamous Army through the Waterloo scenes, and though it didn't have the officers slipping out, one by one, it did have a certain poignant solemnity to it, with the call to arms sounding over the waltz. And the emptying of Brussels was v. effective. And the battleground, afterwards ... 'unsentimental' seems a good word, and there's less use of smoke to cover up scenery deficits than in, say, Sharpe.