Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: James Strong, Roadshow Entertainment.
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Tom Bateman, Johnny Flynn, Michael Palin, Claudia Jessie.
An adaptation of the 1848 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair is a seven-part television series period drama.
This new adaptation sees Cooke – star of Steven Spielberg’s film Ready Player One – plays Thackeray’s timeless heroine Becky Sharp.
Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, Thackeray’s literary classic follows Sharp as she attempts to claw her way out of poverty and scale the heights of English society. Her story of “villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting and dancing” takes her all the way to the court of King George IV, via the Battle of Waterloo, losing fortunes as she goes and breaking hearts as she goes.
Becky, the daughter of a French opera girl and an artist father, is a disbelieving social climber who uses her charms to fascinate and seduce upper-class men.
Sharp is facing an apparently uninspiring life as a governess. She has graduated from Miss Pinkerton’s Academy with ceaselessly munificent, considerate and rather wealthy Amelia (Jessie). Sharp has a plan for every occasion and will do anything towards ‘improving her station’.
Such action includes flirting with her employer Sir Pitt Crawley (Martin Clunes) and his son, Rawdon (Bateman) and Amelia’s brother, Jos (David Fynn).
Sharp is a woman outside of her time and no one sees her malicious intent, until it’s (almost) too late.
Director Strong (Broadchurch) and writer Gwyneth Hughes (Dark Angel, The Girl, Miss Austen Regrets) provide simple interpretation of the novel. It moves quickly, hitting some of the notes and offers a juicy, well-played role for Cooke.
