Review of Vanity Fair (2004) by Tom B — 08 Apr 2013
What's wrong with this movie can be summed up by the scene after the Battle of Waterloo. It's beautifully photographed, vivid, full of extras and you don't believe for a second that these artfully posed corpses are really dead. The parts of Vanity Fair are far greater than the whole.
As a whole the characters are unlikeable and stupid in their inability to see what's obvious to the viewer. Jonathan Rhys Meyers smirks and is sullen. Rhys Ifans character, dull, but with a heart of gold, keeps the hairdresser busy as he changes styles constantly. The only character you like is Rawdon Crawley, but his failure to kowtow to his rich relatives dooms him and he dies offscreen. Witherspoon is two hours of plucky, it gets old very quickly.
Don't waste your time, spend it in rereading Thackeray's masterpiece.
This review of Vanity Fair (2004) was written by Tom B on 08 April 2013.
Vanity Fair has generally received mixed reviews.
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