This brief tale is a summary of the motion picture called "Vanity Fair," which made its debut last year. First, I should like to set the scene, so that you may know the circumstances under which it was viewed. I should think that other reviews would benefit by providing such knowledge to readers; it does violence to the truth unless a writer reveals, exemplo gratia, that he traveled to the motion picture theatre after a bitter dispute with his wife, or, in Roger Ebert's case, if his gout was acting up that evening.
On the way home from my place of employment last Friday, I had decided to cleanse my soul by participating in the sacrament of reconciliation. One of the parishes near my home, named for Saint Louis of France, distributes God's merciful grace at half-past five in the evening. To my chagrin, when I arrived at thirty-four minutes past the hour, there were already a dozen people ahead of me. My own parish is known for its strict approach to the Holy Faith, but Saint Louis makes it look like Unitarians of the Loose Observance. Judging that I would not be able to return home for another hour, and knowing that my expectant wife would want me home sooner, I prayed before the exposed sacrament, and left the church, resolving to return in the next day or two.
I stopped at a pastry shop down the road from my home, which closes at the hour of six, several minutes before I journey past it in the evenings. The shop is known for its fine sweet confections, and most of the persons behind the counter are young ladies who live in that locality. Its sole detraction is that male youths are attracted to the ladies, like vultures to carrion. I enquired if they had any chocolate desserts, which my wife regards with great delight. The handsome shop-maiden guided me through my selections, which later turned out to be exquisite. As she helped me, the young lady was quite pleasant, and as I completed the transaction she smiled and bade me goodbye in such a way as to suggest that my presence was not entirely disagreeable to her. For a man of my advancing years, this was indeed flattering.
I will not detail the portion of the evening devoted to cajoling and issuing threats unto the Johnson children, at least the three that are not in utero, as those events are unedifying. At last, when the children were in their bedrooms, I piled high the logs and set a gloriously bright, warm fire in our hearth. I poured a cup of fresh coffee for myself, and steeped a cheerful cup of Earl Grey for my wife, and we began to eat and drink and (you were wondering if this was ever going to come) watch "Vanity Fair."
The first difficulty with the motion picture was apparent, for you see, the heroine, Becky Sharp, is played by Mrs. Reese Witherspoon, whose personal charms are apparent, her skills in drama well-honed, but her countenance is that of a twenty-first-century woman, not of one who lived two centuries prior to our day.
Even more seriously, the pace of the drama was like that of an addled sufferer of heart disease. The film is based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, who besides having a name that is most unusual and enjoyable to pronounce (I urge you to try it), wrote works of great complexity and density of plot. I have viewed but one other filmed version of a Thackeray novel, entitled "Barry Lyndon," crafted by the misanthropic genius Stanley Kubrick, and its length is an hour longer than "Vanity Fair." That length seems more suitable to the scope of Thackeray's intent.
The actors made very little impression upon me, save for Romola Garai, whose performance I enjoyed, and whose face suited the time and place of the film, but I cannot in good conscience praise anyone who knowingly agreed to be in "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights," which I have not, in point of fact, actually seen, but the idea of which is as risible as "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." The men were mostly nonentities; only Gabriel Byrne elevated himself. Mrs. Witherspoon gave her customary zeal, and the countless hours she doubtless spent with dialogue coaches paid off with her accent, which was plausible at the very least.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the moment when the film, to use a phrase that is foreign to the faux-Victorian idiom that I have adopted for this post, "jumped the shark." Becky organises a dance number for the king of Britain, and persuades aristocratic ladies to participate. The result looks much like a Madonna video, circa 1987, and it was enough to transform my hitherto ambivalent opinion about the film into mild dislike.
A couple of BBC versions are available on video, and I think they're both six hours in length. Since VF is a huge novel originally published in serial form, and with a large cast of characters, making it into serial TV does it some justice.
To my friend Mr. Eric Johnson:
Whilst it is difficult to disagree with your analysis of the flaws of the latest cinematic offering of Mrs. Mira Nair, it is equally difficult to have much sympathy for your sufferings, because the flaws which you enumerate were apparent in the very conception of the film, making it your initial mistake to see the film in the first place.
That Mrs. Witherspoon is a wonderful actress in contemporary roles, such as the Clintonesque schemer Tracy Flick in ELECTION, is a matter about which sane men cannot dispute, as it is a point plainly apparent to all with eyes to see. But this very contemporaneity made it apparent to reason, without the necessity of exposing oneself to the film itself, either that (1) Mrs. Witherspoon would be miscast, in the event Mrs. Nair produced an adaptation faithful to at least the spirit of the novel VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray (pronounced flawlessly by VJM, of course); or (2) the role of Becky Sharp would be reconfigured in vulgarly contemporary terms, to fit the image of Mrs. Witherspoon, in which case such violence would be done the spirit of the novel VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray (pronounced flawlessly by VJM, of course) that it would obscene to view a film carrying that title.
That no mere two-hour film could do justice the epic sweep of the novel VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray (pronounced flawlessly by VJM, of course) is a point also too obvious to require elaboration -- except to the vulgar, the opinions of whom we here need not concern ourselves. But, in a way similar to the problematic casting of Mrs. Witherspoon, the film's failure on that score was inevitable and discernible even prior to the experience of seeing said film. The Internet Movie Data Base, which provides information readily available to all, lists the film in question as being a mere 2 hours and 15 minutes, patently obviously too little time to give anything more than plot highlights.
So why ja see it, bud.
I had little choice -- my wife brought it home, though I was curious about it. It did surprise me that the director didn't hone in on at least two or three emotional moments and try to exploit them. The material was already there.