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VANITY, THY NAME IS REESE: STAR LACKS HEROINE'S GUILE

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From: The Boston Globe
Date: 20040901
Author:Ty Burr, Globe Staff

If you haven't read William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" - and, let's be honest, you haven't - Mira Nair's new film version will probably play as a reasonable approximation of Merchant-Ivory lite. There are sumptuous costumes, epic battle scenes, horse-drawn cabriolets, and, as to be expected, bewigged British thespians stacked up like cordwood. If the narrative jumps at times - as though the reader were skipping ahead - the movie's still a toothlessly pleasant bit of period tosh.

But there's the problem: Thackeray wasn't interested in being pleasant. "I want to leave everybody ...

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