Production earmarked for late summer shoot in Berlin, Sydney.
AGC Studios is fully financing the upcoming adaptation All That I Am to star Evan Rachel Wood and Rufus Sewell and is launching talks with EFM buyers.
Kate Dennis, who has helmed episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale and Glow, will direct from the adapted screenplay by Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet of the novel by Anna Funder.
Wood and Sewell are joined on the cast by Vanessa Redgrave and Eliza Scanlen and production has been earmarked for a late summer shoot in Berlin and Sydney.
The story centres on four German-Jewish...
AGC Studios is fully financing the upcoming adaptation All That I Am to star Evan Rachel Wood and Rufus Sewell and is launching talks with EFM buyers.
Kate Dennis, who has helmed episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale and Glow, will direct from the adapted screenplay by Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet of the novel by Anna Funder.
Wood and Sewell are joined on the cast by Vanessa Redgrave and Eliza Scanlen and production has been earmarked for a late summer shoot in Berlin and Sydney.
The story centres on four German-Jewish...
- 2/3/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Evan Rachel Wood, Eliza Scanlen, Rufus Sewell and Vanessa Redgrave are set to lead an adaptation of World War II-era book “All That I Am,” Variety can reveal.
AGC Studios is fully financing the film, which will be shot in Berlin and Sydney in late summer. The studio, led by Stuart Ford, introduced the project to buyers this week as part of the virtual European Film Market, which generally runs alongside the Berlin Film Festival.
Written by Australian author Anna Funder, the 2012 international bestseller brings to light a heroic true story about four German-Jewish literati-turned-anti-Nazi activists who are forced to flee to London following the rise of Adolf Hitler’s regime in Germany.
Sixty years later, one of the group members, Ruth Wesemann, is living in Sydney, Australia, and is the sole survivor of the four. One day she receives a package containing the posthumous memoirs of her old friend...
AGC Studios is fully financing the film, which will be shot in Berlin and Sydney in late summer. The studio, led by Stuart Ford, introduced the project to buyers this week as part of the virtual European Film Market, which generally runs alongside the Berlin Film Festival.
Written by Australian author Anna Funder, the 2012 international bestseller brings to light a heroic true story about four German-Jewish literati-turned-anti-Nazi activists who are forced to flee to London following the rise of Adolf Hitler’s regime in Germany.
Sixty years later, one of the group members, Ruth Wesemann, is living in Sydney, Australia, and is the sole survivor of the four. One day she receives a package containing the posthumous memoirs of her old friend...
- 2/3/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Lionsgate U.K. and Nevision are drilling into the simultaneously murky and glamorous world of the oil business in the Middle East in the 1970s. The British arm of the U.S. studio and the London-based indie are co-developing “Oil,” from Alan Whiting (“Kingdom”), Matthew Faulk (“Titanic: Blood and Steel”) and Mark Skeet (“Vanity Fair”).
The eight-part drama will be set in the Persian Gulf. It will blend the geopolitics of the oil business, the stories of the individuals concerned, and what happened in the compounds in which foreign executives and their families lived. Based on real historical events, the action will revolve around a British-American oil firm.
Lionsgate U.K.’s creative director, Steve November, said the setup offers the producers elements of period hit “Mad Men” and high-finance movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” “This is the birth of the Emirates as we know it now, and at...
The eight-part drama will be set in the Persian Gulf. It will blend the geopolitics of the oil business, the stories of the individuals concerned, and what happened in the compounds in which foreign executives and their families lived. Based on real historical events, the action will revolve around a British-American oil firm.
Lionsgate U.K.’s creative director, Steve November, said the setup offers the producers elements of period hit “Mad Men” and high-finance movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” “This is the birth of the Emirates as we know it now, and at...
- 6/21/2018
- by Stewart Clarke
- Variety Film + TV
Unrepped writer Richard Galazka’s romantic comedy Matinee Idol and Malachi Smyth’s Gateway 6 topped the annual Brit List of best unproduced screenplays. Both projects received nine votes. The list is compiled by UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies, who aren’t allowed to vote for their own projects. Other qualifying criteria include receiving a minimum of three votes and not having featured on previous Brit Lists.
Previous films to appear on the Brit List include The King’s Speech, Welcome To The Punch, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and most recently The Riot Club.
Matinee Idol is being produced by Rooks Nest Entertainment. Sentinel Entertainment is behind Gateway 6, a futuristic sci-fi project. 42, one of the UK’s most dynamic production and management companies, had two projects on the shortlist: Jay Basu’s The Pier and Outside The Wire, from screenwriting duo Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe
There were 140 entries,...
Previous films to appear on the Brit List include The King’s Speech, Welcome To The Punch, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and most recently The Riot Club.
Matinee Idol is being produced by Rooks Nest Entertainment. Sentinel Entertainment is behind Gateway 6, a futuristic sci-fi project. 42, one of the UK’s most dynamic production and management companies, had two projects on the shortlist: Jay Basu’s The Pier and Outside The Wire, from screenwriting duo Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe
There were 140 entries,...
- 11/20/2014
- by Ali Jaafar
- Deadline
Rom-com and sci-fi top industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.Scroll down for full list
Romantic comedy Matinee Idol by writer Richard Galazka and sci-fi Gateway 6 by Malachi Smyth lead this year’s Brit List, the industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.
Both scripts recorded nine industry votes to top the list.
Rooks Nest Entertainment are producing Matinee Idol, about a cinephile who tries to win a girl’s heart by pretending to be someone he’s not, only to learn that it takes more than grand gestures to turn fantasy into reality.
Sentinel Entertainment are behind futuristic sci-fi Gateway 6, in which on a war-ravaged Earth, four soldiers man the last bastion – an outpost in a sea-covered continent.
Jay Basu’s The Pier, produced by 42, and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ Aether, from FilmNation, followed with eight votes.
The list is compiled by a combination of UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies.
There were 140 entries...
Romantic comedy Matinee Idol by writer Richard Galazka and sci-fi Gateway 6 by Malachi Smyth lead this year’s Brit List, the industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.
Both scripts recorded nine industry votes to top the list.
Rooks Nest Entertainment are producing Matinee Idol, about a cinephile who tries to win a girl’s heart by pretending to be someone he’s not, only to learn that it takes more than grand gestures to turn fantasy into reality.
Sentinel Entertainment are behind futuristic sci-fi Gateway 6, in which on a war-ravaged Earth, four soldiers man the last bastion – an outpost in a sea-covered continent.
Jay Basu’s The Pier, produced by 42, and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ Aether, from FilmNation, followed with eight votes.
The list is compiled by a combination of UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies.
There were 140 entries...
- 11/20/2014
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Scotland-born filmmaker Tom Vaughan ("What Happens in Vegas") is in final talks to direct the bawdy comedy "Tom Jones" for CrossDay Productions.
Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet ("Vanity Fair") penned the script based on Henry Fielding's classic novel "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling."
The story follows an abandoned child discovered on the property of a kind and wealthy Somerset landowner. Taken in, Tom grows into a honest, kindhearted and lust-filled youth.
Inevitably, he falls in love with his neighbor's daughter whose family opposes the courtship because of his status as a bastard child.
No cast is yet attached, and shooting begins early next year in the United Kingdom. The book was previously adapted into the Oscar-winning 1963 film starring Albert Finney.
Source: THR...
Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet ("Vanity Fair") penned the script based on Henry Fielding's classic novel "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling."
The story follows an abandoned child discovered on the property of a kind and wealthy Somerset landowner. Taken in, Tom grows into a honest, kindhearted and lust-filled youth.
Inevitably, he falls in love with his neighbor's daughter whose family opposes the courtship because of his status as a bastard child.
No cast is yet attached, and shooting begins early next year in the United Kingdom. The book was previously adapted into the Oscar-winning 1963 film starring Albert Finney.
Source: THR...
- 5/8/2013
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Scotland-born director Tom Vaughan is in final talks to direct Tom Jones, based on Henry Fielding's classic novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, for London-based CrossDay Productions. Vaughan, whose credits include What Happens in Vegas, will direct the bawdy comedy from an adapted script by Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet (Vanity Fair). The film is set to start production early next year in the U.K. No cast is yet attached. Photos: 11 Biggest Book-to-Big Screen Adaptations of the Last 25 Years “Tom Jones is a timeless, classic romantic comedy. It is exciting to
read more...
read more...
- 5/7/2013
- by Pamela McClintock
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Kevin Zegers, Chris Noth, Derek Jacobi and Neve Campbell are in various stages of negotiations to join the $28 million, 12-part British miniseries Titanic: Blood & Steel, which has begun filming in Belfast. Unlike Simon Vaughn’s internationally produced four-hour miniseries Titanic, which was picked up by ABC and ITV1, Titanic: Blood & Steel, also an international co-production, doesn’t have U.S. or UK distribution yet. It chronicles the building of the Titanic, beginning in Edwardian Belfast in the early 1900s and depicting how the greatest leviathan of all time was hand made in a city on the edge of revolution. Zegers, repped by ICM and Untitled, will play Mark Muir, the metallurgist on the world’s greatest shipbuilding project who discovers potentially fatal flaws in the quality of metal being used to build the Titanic. Noth is expected to play financier J.P. Morgan; Jacobi would play Lord William Pirrie, chairman of...
- 8/31/2011
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
An individual investor has bought a 25% stake in London-based production company CrossDay. Producers Pippa Cross and Janette Day will use the money to help convert two movies a year over the next three years. First up will be a remake of the Oscar-winning Tom Jones directed by David Dury with a screenplay by Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet (Vanity Fair). Filming is set for this fall. Lionsgate will release CrossDay’s Heartless, starring Jim Sturgess, in the UK this Friday. Momentum will release its latest production Chalet Girl, starring Ed Westwick, Bill Nighy and Felicity Jones, early 2011. Cross and [...]...
- 5/17/2010
- by TIM ADLER
- Deadline London
Shekhar Kapur (”Elizabeth”, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”) has signed on to direct a biopic of George Marllory, the English explorer and mountain climber. Julia Roberts’ Red Om Films and Kevin Townsend’s Science + Fiction will be producing the project, which is about Mallory and his climbing partner, who disappeared in 1924 while climbing Mt. Everest. The two were 800 feet from the summit of Everest before the clouds closed in over them and they were never seen again. Townsend, Mark Skeet, and Matthew Faulk wrote the script for the yet-unnamed project. Variety.com is stating that the film will take place in post-WW1 England, chronicling Mallory’s various attempts to scale Everest [...]...
- 4/22/2010
- by Costa Koutsoutis
- ShockYa
'Men in Black 3' in 3D and 'Bad Boys 3' Inanity : Director Barry Sonnenfeld has reportedly said both Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones have signed on to star in Men in Black 3 and that it will be shown in 3D. Also, Martin Lawrence said talks of Bad Boys 3 are happening and added, "Any time you can get [Will Smith] to come out and talk about doing a third installment of a hot movie like Bad Boys, you have to take notice. I met with Michael Bay, and he said he's on board too - so it's real."
Lawrence said, "I got Big Willie to come down and see me about the movie. I felt special. We're just waiting on Jerry Bruckheimer to let us know when it's really real." [Showbiz 411 and MTV]
Mendes and Shankman Being Eyed to Direct Downey Jr. in Wizard of Oz Prequel: So apparently Walt Disney and Alice in Wonderland...
Lawrence said, "I got Big Willie to come down and see me about the movie. I felt special. We're just waiting on Jerry Bruckheimer to let us know when it's really real." [Showbiz 411 and MTV]
Mendes and Shankman Being Eyed to Direct Downey Jr. in Wizard of Oz Prequel: So apparently Walt Disney and Alice in Wonderland...
- 4/22/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
George Mallory may have never come down from Mt. Everest (spoiler alert) but his attempts have gone down into legend as mountaineers have researched and debated whether or not he truly reached the summit. Even the discovery of his body in 1999 didn't put the questions to rest, and now the hunt continues for his Kodak camera to settle the summit question once and for all.
But Hollywood will undoubtedly take a side, as Variety reports that Mallory and his fateful climb are getting the big-screen treatment. Julia Roberts' Red Om Productions and Kevin Townsend's Science + Fiction are producing, and Shekhar Kapur has claimed the director's chair. Townsend, Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet penned the script.
The film will begin in England, post World War I, and follow Mallory's determination to conquer Everest and "the toll it takes on his marriage as the mountain becomes his obsession." I don't...
But Hollywood will undoubtedly take a side, as Variety reports that Mallory and his fateful climb are getting the big-screen treatment. Julia Roberts' Red Om Productions and Kevin Townsend's Science + Fiction are producing, and Shekhar Kapur has claimed the director's chair. Townsend, Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet penned the script.
The film will begin in England, post World War I, and follow Mallory's determination to conquer Everest and "the toll it takes on his marriage as the mountain becomes his obsession." I don't...
- 4/22/2010
- by Elisabeth Rappe
- Cinematical
Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth," "The Four Feathers") has signed on direct a biopic of English explorer George Mallory for Red Om Films and Science + Fiction reports Variety.
Set in post-wwi England, the story follows Mallory's attempts to scale Mount Everest and how that obsession took a toll on his marriage.
Mallory and his climbing partner disappeared in 1924 just 800ft. from the summit.
Kevin Townsend, Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet penned the script. Townsend and Julia Roberts will produce.
Set in post-wwi England, the story follows Mallory's attempts to scale Mount Everest and how that obsession took a toll on his marriage.
Mallory and his climbing partner disappeared in 1924 just 800ft. from the summit.
Kevin Townsend, Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet penned the script. Townsend and Julia Roberts will produce.
- 4/22/2010
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Shekhar Kapur will direct a biopic of famed English explorer George Mallory. Julia Roberts is producing via her Red Om Films along with Kevin Townsend's Science + Fiction. Mallory's and his climbing partner disappeared in 1924 at 800 feet from the summit before the clouds closed in. Film is set after World War I in England and chronicles Mallory's attempts to climb Mt. Everest. Also looks at the toll the obsession in climbing the mountain took on his marriage. Townsend, Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet ("Vanity Fair") write the screenplay. Kapur would be a perfect fit for the project with strong credits including "Elizabeth" and "Elizabeth: the Golden Age" starring Cate Blanchett.
- 4/22/2010
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Shekhar Kapur has had more success when making films about iconic British figures (Elizabeth) than attempting to remake dramas (The Four Feathers). So he’s sticking with his strength for a biopic about famed explorer George Mallory.Vanity Fair’s Mark Skeet and Matthew Faulk have worked on the script with producer Kevin Townsend, and the plot will follow Mallory’s growing obsession with conquering Everest and the strain it places on his marriage.His quest had a tragic ending – in 1924 he and his climbing partner disappeared 800 feet from the summit of the mighty mountain, and his body was discovered years later, in 1999. Oh, and… er… spoiler alert! Sorry, probably too late on that one.The movie has an unexpected other partner – Julia Roberts is producing with her Red Om company, though we don’t think she’s taking a role. Mallory is also the subject of an upcoming Imax documentary,...
- 4/22/2010
- EmpireOnline
Variety reports that Shekhar Kapur ( Elizabeth: The Golden Age , Elizabeth ) has signed to direct a biopic of English explorer George Mallory with Julia Roberts' Red Om Films and Kevin Townsend's Science + Fiction producing. Mallory and his climbing partner disappeared in 1924; they were 800 feet from the summit of Mt. Everest before the clouds closed in. Set in post-WW1 England, the story chronicles Mallory's attempts to scale Everest and the toll it takes on his marriage, as the mountain becomes his obsession. Townsend, Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet wrote the script.
- 4/21/2010
- Comingsoon.net
Not an easy thing, making a film version of a classic 900-page novel, but harder still for a director to make that film her own. Mira Nair accomplishes this feat in Vanity Fair, an energetic new take on William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, one flavored with Indian spices. Yes, there is too much plot and far too many characters for a comfortable period movie. The story leaps about in a jerky manner, and the movie portrays its personae in broad brushstrokes rather than with meticulous, painterly precision. No matter. The spirit of that most modern of 19th century heroines, Becky Sharp, remains intact, and Nair's Indian touches make for an intriguing, fresh approach.
Traditionalists will no doubt carp about the Bollywood touches, but does anyone really want to see another anemic, literal translation of Thackeray on the screen? Reviews may be vital for the Focus Features release, however, as getting the film out of the art-house ghetto does represent a marketing challenge. The outlook in ancillary markets looks promising.
Thackeray's novel, which takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, concerns the lives of two starkly contrasted women, who first meet at an academy for young ladies. Film versions inevitably focus on Becky, a model of feisty feminism long before such a term existed and by far the tale's most entertaining and engrossing character.
Writers Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes follow the fortunes of both women but zero in on Becky. As played by Reese Witherspoon, this Becky, despite being a social climber and first-class schemer, is completely sympathetic. Women had little means other than guile and marriage to cross forbidden class barriers in English society of that era. Becky knows what she is doing but clings stubbornly to a moral code, albeit one not appreciated by the majority of that era's society matrons.
Certainly the first scheme of Becky and her best friend, Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai), fails to pan out. Amelia wants Becky to snare her rich but dim brother Jos (Tony Maudsley) in matrimony while Amelia herself has her heart set on dashing army captain George Osborne (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Only George, a callow cad, talks Jos out of marrying the virtually penniless orphan.
Becky gains employment at the ramshackle country home of the Crawley family as governess and eventually marries Rawdon Crawley (James Purefoy), the second son of Sir Pitt Crawley (Bob Hoskins). When Sir Pitt's spinster sister Matilde (Eileen Atkins), formerly Becky's greatest champion, learns of the marriage, Rawdon, a self-indulgent, habitual gambler, is tossed out of the family.
George does marry Amelia, but only to spite his overbearing father (Jim Broadbent), a wealthy member of the emerging merchant class. George perishes in the battle of Waterloo, which Rawdon survives. Both women are by then pregnant. Amelia has her son, but her father-in-law lets her and the boy languish in dire poverty. Becky, too, has a boy, on whom Rawdon dotes. But as his gambling debts mount, Becky allows herself to acquire a patron in the powerful Marquess of Steyne (Gabriel Byrne). Where in Thackeray's version she become his mistress, in Nair's she is seen as compromised but still innocent.
A broken-hearted Rawdon quits the marriage and Becky drifts to the continent, where several years later her encounter with both Amelia and her brother brings the story to a close. Here again, Nair insists on an alteration of Thackeray. Where the novel leaves Becky a widow, who has ultimately realized her dreams, albeit at great cost, Nair's Becky runs off to India with Jos for a wedding in a lavish sequence shot at the magnificent Mehrangarh Fort in Jodphur.
Nair's Indian-ization of Vanity Fair is not without justification. Indeed Thackeray was born in Calcutta, where his father worked for the East Indian Co. The social world that he describes with such a critical eye in Vanity Fair was one of excesses of riches made possible by the British colonialization and the consequent rise of a middle class. Asian, African and Indian influences were creeping into London society as the Empire encountered cultures and people it barely understood.
Nair's cast is splendid. Witherspoon does justice to the juicy role by giving the part more buoyancy than naughtiness. Hoskins makes delightful comedy out of the idiosyncratic Sir Pitt. Byrne has just the right mix of hauteur and disdain for fellow aristocrats.
Rhys Ifans takes the self-pity out of the lovelorn William Dobbin, whose love for Amelia transcends her many brushoffs. Purefoy manages to project a manly exuberance that disguises a weak, hedonistic character. Atkins is great fun as the cheerfully hypocritical Aunt Mathilda, while Broadbent suggests overweening pride in the morally obtuse Mr. Osborne.
No attempt is made to age the actors; they simply appear in different costumes. Those costumes are especially rich, providing a kind of running commentary on the characters. Set design and photography are strong enough for the film to avoid that TV miniseries look from which so many British period pieces suffer.
VANITY FAIR
Focus Features
A Tempesta Films/Granada Film production
Credits:
Director: Mira Nair
Screenwriters: Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet, Julian Fellowes
Based on the novel by: William Makepeace Thackeray
Producers: Janette Day, Donna Gigliotti, Lydia Dean Pilcher
Executive producers: Jonathan Lynn, Howard Cohen, Pippa Cross
Director of photography: Declan Quinn
Production designer: Maria Djurkovic
Music: Mychael Danna
Co-producer: Jane Frazer
Costume designer: Beatrix Aruna Paztor
Editor: Allyson C. Johnson
Cast:
Becky Sharp: Reese Witherspoon
Matilda Crawley: Eileen Atkins
Mr. Osborne: Jim Broadbent
Marquess: Gabriel Byrne
Amelia Sedley: Romola Garai
Sir Pitt Crawley: Bob Hoskins
William Dobbin: Rhys Ifans
Lady Southdown: Geraldine McEwan
Rawdon Crawley: James Purefoy
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running time -- 140 minutes...
Traditionalists will no doubt carp about the Bollywood touches, but does anyone really want to see another anemic, literal translation of Thackeray on the screen? Reviews may be vital for the Focus Features release, however, as getting the film out of the art-house ghetto does represent a marketing challenge. The outlook in ancillary markets looks promising.
Thackeray's novel, which takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, concerns the lives of two starkly contrasted women, who first meet at an academy for young ladies. Film versions inevitably focus on Becky, a model of feisty feminism long before such a term existed and by far the tale's most entertaining and engrossing character.
Writers Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes follow the fortunes of both women but zero in on Becky. As played by Reese Witherspoon, this Becky, despite being a social climber and first-class schemer, is completely sympathetic. Women had little means other than guile and marriage to cross forbidden class barriers in English society of that era. Becky knows what she is doing but clings stubbornly to a moral code, albeit one not appreciated by the majority of that era's society matrons.
Certainly the first scheme of Becky and her best friend, Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai), fails to pan out. Amelia wants Becky to snare her rich but dim brother Jos (Tony Maudsley) in matrimony while Amelia herself has her heart set on dashing army captain George Osborne (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Only George, a callow cad, talks Jos out of marrying the virtually penniless orphan.
Becky gains employment at the ramshackle country home of the Crawley family as governess and eventually marries Rawdon Crawley (James Purefoy), the second son of Sir Pitt Crawley (Bob Hoskins). When Sir Pitt's spinster sister Matilde (Eileen Atkins), formerly Becky's greatest champion, learns of the marriage, Rawdon, a self-indulgent, habitual gambler, is tossed out of the family.
George does marry Amelia, but only to spite his overbearing father (Jim Broadbent), a wealthy member of the emerging merchant class. George perishes in the battle of Waterloo, which Rawdon survives. Both women are by then pregnant. Amelia has her son, but her father-in-law lets her and the boy languish in dire poverty. Becky, too, has a boy, on whom Rawdon dotes. But as his gambling debts mount, Becky allows herself to acquire a patron in the powerful Marquess of Steyne (Gabriel Byrne). Where in Thackeray's version she become his mistress, in Nair's she is seen as compromised but still innocent.
A broken-hearted Rawdon quits the marriage and Becky drifts to the continent, where several years later her encounter with both Amelia and her brother brings the story to a close. Here again, Nair insists on an alteration of Thackeray. Where the novel leaves Becky a widow, who has ultimately realized her dreams, albeit at great cost, Nair's Becky runs off to India with Jos for a wedding in a lavish sequence shot at the magnificent Mehrangarh Fort in Jodphur.
Nair's Indian-ization of Vanity Fair is not without justification. Indeed Thackeray was born in Calcutta, where his father worked for the East Indian Co. The social world that he describes with such a critical eye in Vanity Fair was one of excesses of riches made possible by the British colonialization and the consequent rise of a middle class. Asian, African and Indian influences were creeping into London society as the Empire encountered cultures and people it barely understood.
Nair's cast is splendid. Witherspoon does justice to the juicy role by giving the part more buoyancy than naughtiness. Hoskins makes delightful comedy out of the idiosyncratic Sir Pitt. Byrne has just the right mix of hauteur and disdain for fellow aristocrats.
Rhys Ifans takes the self-pity out of the lovelorn William Dobbin, whose love for Amelia transcends her many brushoffs. Purefoy manages to project a manly exuberance that disguises a weak, hedonistic character. Atkins is great fun as the cheerfully hypocritical Aunt Mathilda, while Broadbent suggests overweening pride in the morally obtuse Mr. Osborne.
No attempt is made to age the actors; they simply appear in different costumes. Those costumes are especially rich, providing a kind of running commentary on the characters. Set design and photography are strong enough for the film to avoid that TV miniseries look from which so many British period pieces suffer.
VANITY FAIR
Focus Features
A Tempesta Films/Granada Film production
Credits:
Director: Mira Nair
Screenwriters: Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet, Julian Fellowes
Based on the novel by: William Makepeace Thackeray
Producers: Janette Day, Donna Gigliotti, Lydia Dean Pilcher
Executive producers: Jonathan Lynn, Howard Cohen, Pippa Cross
Director of photography: Declan Quinn
Production designer: Maria Djurkovic
Music: Mychael Danna
Co-producer: Jane Frazer
Costume designer: Beatrix Aruna Paztor
Editor: Allyson C. Johnson
Cast:
Becky Sharp: Reese Witherspoon
Matilda Crawley: Eileen Atkins
Mr. Osborne: Jim Broadbent
Marquess: Gabriel Byrne
Amelia Sedley: Romola Garai
Sir Pitt Crawley: Bob Hoskins
William Dobbin: Rhys Ifans
Lady Southdown: Geraldine McEwan
Rawdon Crawley: James Purefoy
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running time -- 140 minutes...
- 9/29/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Vanity Fair's original screenwriters Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet are furious their names have appeared on the credits of the period drama - because they were replaced by Oscar-winning scribe Julian Fellowes. Faulk and Skeet were the first writers approached by director Mira Nair to adapt William Makepeace Thackeray's classic novel for the big screen and were dismayed when the script was dumped. They were further angered when Gosford Park writer Fellowes was called in to create the screenplay from scratch. A film insider says, "They are very annoyed that Fellowes has come in and rewritten it and now it's got bad reviews. Especially as their names appear on the credits." Fellowes sympathizes with the pair, saying, "I was brought in by Mira Nair some time after the original script had been written. We talked about the novel that we were both rather in love with and I was invited to rework the script. The whole point was that Mira wanted to begin again. I never so much as had a telephone conversation with Skeet and Faulk, let alone meet them. But if they feel overlooked, how could I blame them."...
- 9/3/2004
- WENN
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