Beautiful, moving film.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a condensed version of Vanity Fair, a story about Machiavellian social climber, Becky Sharp in the early years of the 19th century. Director Mira Nair infuses the film with Eastern sensitivities to keep things spiced.Becky (Reese Witherspoon) is certainly determined to get to the highest strata of English society by use of cunning, guile and her sensuality. After leaving her horrid educational Academy, Becky becomes governess to the daughters of lowly nobleman Sir Pitt Crawley (Bob Hoskins) where she enchants the household and catches the attention of the wealthy Miss Matilda Crawley (Eileen Atkins).Becky secretly marries Rawdon Crawley (James Purefoy) but this leaves them disinherited by the Crawley's who are not happy about the union, as the widowed Sir Pitt was hoping to marry Becky.Becky marches on, over time Crawley goes off to fight the Napoleonic wars but his gambling debts are always an hindrance. The lecherous Lord Steyne (Gabriel Byrne) helps out Becky but at a heavy price as he plans to desire her.The book is regarded as a novel without a hero. Becky in the film has been smoothed out, even made slightly likable, a survivor in an era where the odds were against her.The film is choppy and incoherent as the lengthy novel has been cut down and as the time period goes on, the characters age little which causes further confusion.Despite the spiky beginning the film lulls from the middle and although not a successful adaptation it is worth your time.

The biggest most ruthless female orphan social climber, Reese Witherspoon again plays a rising socialite in the ruthless world of elite society that not only honors standing but also nobility.The movie is pretty typical in its plot of rags to riches… and to behonest it ran really, really long.But what got me was the beautiful costume design and how beautiful them movie is. They have a great cast, and a decent watch, free of stress but it does run on the boring side.Plus Becky Sharp is her name… and it doesn't seem like a name of that period… you know?

My girlfriend received this movie as a gift years ago. We finally got around to watching it yesterday. We both were very bored by the film and still aren't sure what the point of the film was. Here are our issues.1. The film had no identity. This seemed to be one of those films that was filmed while writing it. It never seemed to have any purpose and even the director and actors seemed to be lost as to what they expected out of this film. Based on the description on IMDb, I assumed this was your standard film about a poor woman trying to find love and success. But never does it seem that way. It appears that this movie is just about a woman with poor upbringings who is fortunate enough to often be part of rich families, bouncing from family to family, to become nothing more than who she was before.2. There is no growth in the characters, personally nor physically. The character played by Gabriel Byrne looks exactly the way he did 30+ years previously. But the big issue is that none of the characters, including the main character, seem to have much of a personal growth, epiphany, nor any substance. There is no compassion, sympathy, hatred, nor memorable features from these characters. They are far too easy to forget. There is no true hero, protagonist, nor antagonist. Anytime you do start to get to know a character, they take off and leave the film for a moment. Often without explanation.3. The film isn't very easy to follow. Often many characters are introduced without any explanation or understanding of how these characters are important to the story. Matter of fact, many of the characters could have and should have been either expanded upon or written out of the movie. One example of these characters are the children. In the movie one of the characters is pregnant. A family offers to help her with her child while her husband is gone. The child is born. Next thing you know another child is presented without explanation. The first child all of a sudden is no longer living with this family because his mother moved back in with his grandparents. But the movie doesn't tell you this. What happened is that the main family in the story also had a child but failed to mention this. So you are confused when this boy is running around with black hair, then blond, then black, then blond..... it's poor writing. Later on in the movie another child shows up and the movie doesn't explain who the father is, yet all the rest of the characters know who he is without explanation. Also, some of the main characters get married out of the blue without any mention until after the fact. Two characters will meet one day, flirt for a few seconds, then be married without any wedding nor any indication that these two are in love.4. The movie doesn't follow any plot structure that I'm aware of. There is no dramatic climax nor anything building up to one. Like I said before, the movie has no purpose.The only good things I can say about this movie is that it looks great and I really liked the costumes. The setting and photography were excellent. It was just wasted on such a poor script.

None of the reviews I have read thus far would seem to have commented on the music & dance sequence towards the latter part of the film. The sequence depicted 'native' dancers performing an 'ethnic' dance to some equally 'ethnic' music. Both the choreography and the music seemed to draw from a wide variety of styles, i.e. Latin- American, African, Arabic - styles which would simply not have existed in the early 19th century! How on earth could the director have got it so wrong? The sequence was laughable, almost Pythonesque in its absurdity. For me this was the final straw in a piece that had struggled from the start to hold itself together. Even the very talented Miss Witherspoon looked fairly clueless throughout most of the film.