Last weekend, we finally saw Mira Nair's version of Vanity Fair. It wasn't bad. A little long, a little trouble telling the story in places, some problems with the actors, but overall, well worth seeing. Nair lays on the "India is England" subtext with a trowel. Lots of saris, peacocks, hot and spicy food. Not quite the Britain we remember from Stanley Kubrick's version of Thackeray's Barry Lyndon. But why not? The opening credit, "London 1812," the clip-clop of horses hooves on the soundtrack, the carriage riding down the cobblestone street, it's all right out of Masterpiece Theatre.
Unlike Bettye Davis' Becky Sharp in Rouben Mamoulian's 1935 version, Reese Witherspoon somehow avoids coming across as a conniving, calculating, immoral climber. Things seem to happen to her almost by accident, perhaps because she is blonde, while Davis was a brunette? Nair's storyline resonates with Gone with the Wind, Becky Sharp like Scarlett O'Hara; Amelia, Melanie. You can tell us who is Rhett Butler and who is Ashley Wilkes, after you've seen it. The battle of Waterloo parallels Sherman's burning of Atlanta.
In real life, according to our handy companion Who Was Really Who In Fiction Thackeray was Dobbin, and Amelia was Jane Brookfield, the wife of his best friend, for whom he burned an unrequited torch. Lord Steyne was Lord Hertford. And there was a real Becky Sharp, too, but her name escapes us, at the moment...She also came to a bad end.
