Vanity Fair

There has been a ridiculous number of movies about psychopathic killers - Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, Copycat, The Cell, etc, etc - and yet for a realistic depiction of a psychopath, this mini-series leaves them all far behind. If you want to see what the average psychopath is like (or perhaps I should say above average, because there is nothing average about Becky Sharp), this is far more true to life than all the others. The reality is that for every Hannibal Lecter in the world, there are a thousand Becky Sharps, and together they do far more damage than all the serial killers. I can only think that Thackeray must have known someone like her, because you can't get this close to reality by sheer imagination, and I don't know of any literary examples he could have copied from.

Of course, the novel, and the series, are about far more than one character - they are in fact about Vanity Fair, the world that Thackerary knew and didn't particularly love, the society which was so warped and hypocritical (rather like ours today, in fact) that it allowed characters like Becky Sharp to prosper.

This is not nearly as pleasant as the usual BBC mini-series, but it is compulsively watchable; the depiction is almost flawless and Natasha Little does a brilliant job portraying the woman we love to hate. The rest of the cast is also excellent, including Nathaniel Parker as Rawdon, the principal victim of his wife's intrigues, Philip Glenister as the lovable but awfully clumsy Dobbin and David Bradley as the appalling baronet Sir Pitt Crawley.

I much prefer this version to the film, which naturally has its limitation of time to be considered. The cast I believe to be perfect, so much is said without words and the story plays along beautifully. It's been some years since I read the book, it's always on my list but gets pushed back because I have read it before, but perhaps this year? Becky is a delicious minx and Amelia is gullible and sweet. I loved Josh Sedley, adored Dobbin and Rawdon. There are so many brilliantly drawn characters, too many to mention. It's absorbing and entertaining, funny and heart wrenching. I have watched and enjoyed this before and no doubt will do so again.

A six hour miniseries by the BBC and A&E, "Vanity Fair" (1998) has sufficient time to present the classic tale of the socially adroit, cunning, and beguiling Becky Sharp's rise from lowly governess to lofty aristocrat with depth, detail, and attention to the many characters and side stories swirling around her. Given it's British pedigree, the film recreates the period with fidelity from beautiful country vistas to dank squalor; from stately manors to Gothic mansions; from handsome gentlemen to grotesque lechers; from elegant gowns to threadbare cloaks; etc. Natasha Little makes a superb centerpiece though her fellow actors are equally well cast and competent in their roles. The downside to the series is a somewhat uneven screenplay which spends time while women sing parlor songs only to rush through some of the moments in which we would most like to linger. The musical score is annoyingly heavy handed, poorly nuanced, and often too much like a poor Salvation Army brass street ensemble. "Vanity Fair" (1998) should be time well spent for anyone into Victorian period fare, especially comedy/dramas, the works of W.M. Thackeray, or fans of the players. Subtitling is excellent. (B+)

Thackeray prefaced his book with a short piece apparently explaining that the characters were just "puppets" who lived, ate and made love in a (fictional?) world that was neither moral nor immoral. Some have taken this at face value. However the book is generally seen as a savage satire and even today the appearance of Knight of the Realm, Sir Pitt Crawley, is rather shocking in that the reader just as much as the characters in the book, mistake him for a footman or even watchman such are his appearance and manners - breaking a convention that other Victorian writers such as Dickens and Trollope strictly observed. In the opening chapter the exceedingly disrespectful young Becky Sharp is again a character set against the Victorian archetype. Neither virtuous nor fallen woman (generally the literary alternatives at the time), Becky Sharp fights her way through life using her sharpness of perception and her bodily attractions - sometimes winning, sometimes losing badly.

Thackeray portrays a world where people can and do behave badly and act grossly. They are though not puppets - satire is not the portrayal of puppets, rather a clear-sighted, uncharitable and somewhat exaggerated version of reality. Thackeray is writing without rosy spectacles. The virtuous do not necessarily live happily ever after and the bad go unpunished. The weak, it seems, go to the wall. His preface then should be seen as a disingenuous disclaimer to quiet and fob off those who took exception to the sourness of his portrayal of humanity. But the book stands on its own two feet. The real Becky Sharp, on the make and none too scrupulous, existed then, she exists today, as do all the other characters but it requires the removal of the rose-tinted spectacles to see them - and perhaps some courage to write about them too.

This production plays the story entirely straight - an excellent cast portraying their characters realistically and without exaggeration, living according to their respective values and the hand Life deals them. It is left to the titles - the visuals and the music - to sound a ripe raspberry at their antics - and to remind us that this is not a puppet show but a sharp satire on how some people lived in England 200 years ago.

A pretty fine cast, not all though got an opportunity to shine, but memorable were Jeremy Swift as a perspiring great dumpling Jos Sedley; an unsmiling, uncharming and unsightly Lord Steyne, removing the noble from the nobility; Philip Glennister as the ever reliable Dobbin; Nathaniel Parker as the dashing officer/adventurer snared by adventuress, Becky Sharp. The problem however I had with Natasha Little was that she was no seductress, there was no sweetness (however false) that surely would have been an essential weapon in her fight to get what she wanted? Perhaps the book does not make clear the nature of her appeal to men, only her will, her lack of scruples and the mixed success she had. Was she too sharp to successfully mask it with sweetness? Was her practical, cool matter-of-factness attractive? Perhaps for all his sharp observation, Thackeray did not have intimate knowledge of such aggressively ambitious women?

Nobody mentions adapter Andrew Davies? Probably because he has done his job so well that nobody notices.

I rather doubt there will be a better version.

Loved this production! I had never read the book (I will now!) but have grown to have a lot of trust in any adaptation that BBC does. I was not disappointed. Especially impressive was the ability of Natasha Little (Becky Sharp) to express Becky's manipulativeness through her subtle facial expressions and subtle use of her eyes and her voice. She was able to convey the mix of wicked cunning and refined pleasantness in a way that was really convincing. Not hard to believe that so many of the characters were completely sucked in by Becky's wiles. This subtle and superb acting ability is often lost in modern films that rely so heavily on on visual/graphic effects to make the point. Bravo,BBC!