Vanity Fair

Aroview: Sumptuous and intelligent adaptation of William Thackeray's novel, about the rise of an unscrupulous orphan lass to the aristocracy in Britain during the era of the Napoleonic Wars.

Lacking a little of the lightness of wit necessary to convey Thackeray's sense of irony, dir. Nair still orchestrates her complicated plot with some sureness, also striking the odd revisionist note with regard to colonialist imperialism. Witherspoon constructs a more than adequate portrait of 'the successful woman', though perhaps never quite accesses Becky Sharpe's darker qualities, playing for a safer tone of cheerful cynicism.