When trying to analyse why it has taken me so long to watch the most recent TV adaptation (on ITV) of Vanity Fair, I've had to face up to something I've never really admitted to myself before. It wasn't the adaptation's reputation of being very hey wow and attuned to the times that put me off, or at least not solely. If I'm honest with myself, I'm just not that fond of the novel.
As a villain-lover, I'm of course duty bound to root for Becky Sharp, and I do - though to be accurate, she is more of an anti-heroine. I particularly appreciate that Thackeray allows her to be such a bad mother. This is huge in a Victorian novel: in Dickens, even his "dark" women (with the honourable exception of Rosa Dartle) are overflowing with maternal sentiments towards some girl or other. Not Becky, who doesn't see the point of her own offspring, unlike the fond father Rawley (another nice touch). I also remember enjoying Thackeray's mildly ironic prose style when I read the novel ages ago. But apart from that, I didn't care for either the story or for most of the characters. Though Becky has some successes with her scheming, the novel never quite becomes the "bad girl goes from rags to riches" tale that at least I'd been hoping for. There are a couple of frustrating near-misses in Becky's career, and even at the height of her success she and her husband are still getting by on "nothing a year". Elsewhere, the downwards trajectory of the Sedleys is pretty depressing. As for the characters, many of them are created to be unpleasant, and even those who aren't can get on one's nerves, especially the blinkered Amelia. I did not look forward to spending seven whole episodes in the company of this sometimes downright grotesque bunch.
I started the ITV series (adapted by Gwyneth Hughes) pretty sceptically, and was at first extra sensitive to anything that might signal a typical late 2010 consciousness. That Becky threw out both her own Dr Johnson dictionary and Amelia's I considered overkill. There was a scene where the Sedleys were being racially insensitive in front of their black manservant Sam which felt forced, and Amelia and George got away with a remarkable amount of smooching for a courting Regency couple. Nevertheless, I had to admit that the story covered in the first episode of how Becky tried and failed to win Amelia's brother Jos and ended up in Queen's Crawley was effectively told.
As the series progressed, it became even clearer that the few "modern" touches - the pop songs that bookended the episodes worked more or less well, but I actually thought the signature song "All along the Watch Tower" was a good fit and very Becky-ish - were superficial adornments. At its heart, the series is a solid, straightforward adaptation of the novel. What's more, it is played more straight than the Andrew Davies adaptation from the Nineties, which tended to revel in the characters' grotesqueries. Here, even the likes of Sir Pitt Crawley and his heiress sister are more toned down. It helps that the series matches the stellar cast of its predecessor with a strong line-up of its own. The Davies adaptation may have had David Bradley as Sir Pitt, Miriam Margolyes as his sister and Anton Lesser as his son and heir, but the Hughes adaptation has Martin Clunes, Frances de la Tour and the cute, skinny one from Horrible Histories (oh, Mathew Baynton - thank you, IMDB) in the same parts (in the latter case it seems as if two members of the Crawley family have been merged into one). In fact, much to my surprise, I found myself enjoying the Hughes adaptation more than what Davies offered me - and usually I swear by Davies.
It's true, I preferred Natasha Little's Becky to Olivia Cooke's. Little had style and a charm that reminded me of Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennet. I could see how people were taken in, and how she could get away with playing the lady. Cooke's Becky has great enthusiasm and a hunger for what life has to offer, but it is always apparent that she's a common little piece. This is a perfectly valid interpretation of the character, though - her admirers (mostly men) don't tend to be that concerned with whether she's ladylike or not. Also, Claudia Jessie in the new version is the perfect Amelia, and though it's hard to match up to the great Philip Glenister, Johnny Flynn is Dobbin exactly as you imagine him.
I liked the more sober tone of the Hughes adaptation, and though there is some padding - Waterloo is made such a meal of one would have thought it was War and Peace - the episodes were not hard to get through. There were nice little moments where characters Thackeray himself seems to have despised were allowed some dignity. In one scene, the autocratic Miss Crawley is terrified because she realises that she will die unmourned. In another, Becky's dim husband Rawdon is made ill at ease by her banter - "maybe I'm a fool, but you shouldn't say so". An effort is made to explain why Amelia pines for her hopeless husband even after he's dead - she has loved him all her life, and never imagined living without him. It's still irritating, though.
The impression I got from the ITV adaptation was that Hughes truly cares for the source material - a great deal more than I do, in fact. She isn't using a Victorian novel as a way to parade her own enlightened opinions, which is a great mercy.
By the way, can anyone explain the tasty Steyne trend? Isn't the Marquess of Steyne supposed to be physically repulsive (which leads one to assume that Becky's reluctance to sleep with him isn't motivated by moral reasons)? Unless I remember incorrectly, the actor who played Steyne in the Davies adaptation gamely sported large, false teeth in order to uglify himself. In the newest adaptation, however, Steyne's played by Anthony Head - sans dentures - who though plainly a great deal older than Becky is a bit of a silver fox. I find it remarkable that the role of Steyne of all people has now twice been taken by hot actors - Gabriel Byrne played him in the film with Reese Witherspoon, which was such a whitewash of Becky's character the whole point of the story was somehow lost. Byrne did a good job of playing the "ugly on the inside" card, but all the same - neither with Byrne nor with Head you feel that Becky is in quite such a painful dilemma as in the book. In this instance, however, I won't complain too much about unfaithfulness to the source material. It has its compensations.
onsdag 30 oktober 2019
onsdag 16 oktober 2019
Beecham House - a very mixed bag
What with no new Once Upon a Time material to obsess over (though I try to make do with the existing 157 episodes), I have drifted back towards old interests - a good thing, I suppose, even if they sometimes feel like a poor replacement. For instance, I've finally caught up with some costume-drama viewing. Beecham House, which aired a while ago in the UK, takes place in late 18th-century India and has been marketed as the "Delhi Downton". It has an upstairs-downstairs set-up, featuring the upright English merchant John Beecham, his family and his Indian household. In the role of his mother, we see the excellent Lesley Nicol, best known as Mrs Patmore in Downton. Of course I had to have a look at it.
Is it worth bothering with, then? Hard to say. I think it all depends on whether there will be a second series. The first two episodes were really boring and the third one, though lighter, is still pretty thin. This surprised me, as Beecham House is the brain child of Gurinder Chadha, who wrote the screenplay for the funny and charming film Bend it Like Beckham. I also remember enjoying her Bride and Prejudice, an Indian take on the Pride and Prejudice story. Even if she's not the sole writer of the series, I did expect a little of the sparkle of Beckham to shine through. Instead, although the settings are sumptuous and the acting is good overall, the script for the three first episodes remains wooden, and the actors have a hard time breathing life into their one-dimensional characters. Beecham is impossibly noble, having walked away from the East India Company because they were... Generally Very Bad. He assures the Emperor (I confess I didn't know there was an Emperor of India at this time, so the series is mildly educational at least) that he thinks "India should be ruled by Indians". He takes the moral high ground on every issue, but for flimsy plot reasons neglects to reveal to his worried family and servants (and incipient love interest) until late in the day that the half-Indian son he's brought with him is legitimate and the mother dead. Because of his reticence, baby August is assumed to be a bastard by the household and two Indian beauties are each in turn suspected to be the mother. When asked point blank about it, Beecham only broods (yep, he's one of those brooding heroes). "Why would you want to marry the dullest man in Delhi?" Beecham's brother Daniel asks one of the ladies vying for John's affections. More than one reviewer has concurred with this view, and I must too.
For the last three episodes, however, things picked up. The characters gained some depth and sympathy, though there was still no spark between Tom Bateman's John Beecham and the English governess Margaret Osborne (Dakota Blue Richards), who were supposed to be interested in each other from the get go in spite of making pretty basic small talk at their first meeting. I'm currently watching Bateman as Rawdon Crawley in Vanity Fair, where he has the required chemistry with Olivia Cooke's Becky, and I liked Richards a lot as Police Officer Trewlove in Endeavour. But the romance between Beecham and Margaret is just too undernourished to fly.
All the same, stories have survived having a hopeless hero and a bland heroine before. Beecham House was moving in the right direction when the first series ended (with a cliffhanger, a strategy I do not approve of). There is room for further development of the characters, who are likeable in their sketchy way. I for one would be interested to know what Violet, a friend of the family who accompanied Mrs Beecham to India in the hope of bagging John, will do next in her endeavours to find a husband. All the downstairs characters could do with more screen time. Elsewhere, Grégory Fitoussi's scowling French General Castillon is pretty fun, especially as it turns out that, though an antagonist, he's not really a villain. You see, he too thinks that India should be ruled by Indians - with maybe just a little help from the French. Then there's Marc Warren as Captain Parker, who isn't given much to work with but who is still Marc Warren.
If there is a second series, I'll be checking it out, but I won't feel obliged to watch it until the end if the quality drops. If you haven't already seen Beecham House, I would recommend you to wait until we know if there is to be a second series. The six existing episodes alone are not necessarily worth investing time in on their own.
Is it worth bothering with, then? Hard to say. I think it all depends on whether there will be a second series. The first two episodes were really boring and the third one, though lighter, is still pretty thin. This surprised me, as Beecham House is the brain child of Gurinder Chadha, who wrote the screenplay for the funny and charming film Bend it Like Beckham. I also remember enjoying her Bride and Prejudice, an Indian take on the Pride and Prejudice story. Even if she's not the sole writer of the series, I did expect a little of the sparkle of Beckham to shine through. Instead, although the settings are sumptuous and the acting is good overall, the script for the three first episodes remains wooden, and the actors have a hard time breathing life into their one-dimensional characters. Beecham is impossibly noble, having walked away from the East India Company because they were... Generally Very Bad. He assures the Emperor (I confess I didn't know there was an Emperor of India at this time, so the series is mildly educational at least) that he thinks "India should be ruled by Indians". He takes the moral high ground on every issue, but for flimsy plot reasons neglects to reveal to his worried family and servants (and incipient love interest) until late in the day that the half-Indian son he's brought with him is legitimate and the mother dead. Because of his reticence, baby August is assumed to be a bastard by the household and two Indian beauties are each in turn suspected to be the mother. When asked point blank about it, Beecham only broods (yep, he's one of those brooding heroes). "Why would you want to marry the dullest man in Delhi?" Beecham's brother Daniel asks one of the ladies vying for John's affections. More than one reviewer has concurred with this view, and I must too.
For the last three episodes, however, things picked up. The characters gained some depth and sympathy, though there was still no spark between Tom Bateman's John Beecham and the English governess Margaret Osborne (Dakota Blue Richards), who were supposed to be interested in each other from the get go in spite of making pretty basic small talk at their first meeting. I'm currently watching Bateman as Rawdon Crawley in Vanity Fair, where he has the required chemistry with Olivia Cooke's Becky, and I liked Richards a lot as Police Officer Trewlove in Endeavour. But the romance between Beecham and Margaret is just too undernourished to fly.
All the same, stories have survived having a hopeless hero and a bland heroine before. Beecham House was moving in the right direction when the first series ended (with a cliffhanger, a strategy I do not approve of). There is room for further development of the characters, who are likeable in their sketchy way. I for one would be interested to know what Violet, a friend of the family who accompanied Mrs Beecham to India in the hope of bagging John, will do next in her endeavours to find a husband. All the downstairs characters could do with more screen time. Elsewhere, Grégory Fitoussi's scowling French General Castillon is pretty fun, especially as it turns out that, though an antagonist, he's not really a villain. You see, he too thinks that India should be ruled by Indians - with maybe just a little help from the French. Then there's Marc Warren as Captain Parker, who isn't given much to work with but who is still Marc Warren.
If there is a second series, I'll be checking it out, but I won't feel obliged to watch it until the end if the quality drops. If you haven't already seen Beecham House, I would recommend you to wait until we know if there is to be a second series. The six existing episodes alone are not necessarily worth investing time in on their own.
onsdag 9 oktober 2019
Simple Downton pleasure
Yes, it's finally time to comment on the Downton film (or movie). I've watched it twice now, and though I liked it a lot I'm still a bit torn about it.
First off: if you are a Downton fan, you will enjoy this film. If possible, go and see it in the cinema: not because it necessarily has to be seen on the big screen, but because you will then be in the company of other fans and get a warm, fuzzy feeling of sharing experiences as the audience around you laughs affectionately at Molesley and at the Dowager Countess's witty lines, gasps when Andy behaves even more stupidly than usual or goes "aaah" when Thomas finally gets a kiss from a nice bloke. You will not leave the cinema sad, angry or betrayed, and that, in these times of fandom discontent, is worth quite a lot.
In some ways, though, I can't help thinking this film is a bit of a wasted opportunity. Reviews have described it as exactly like the TV series, and in a way it is, but for most of the time it's not like the TV series at its best. I wouldn't take a Downton newcomer to see this film. If you want to give them a taste of what the show is like, it's better to go for one of the early episodes (and I say that although I have issues with series one) or maybe the first episode of series two. Downton was always at its most thrilling when exploring the relationships between its main characters: love affairs; family ties; friendships; professional relationships; tensions and bonding between employers and staff etc. In the film, there is little room for this kind of interactions, because a royal visit steals most of the limelight.
Yes, as I predicted, the film is, for the most part, a prime example of Simple Downton. We have glamour, we have beautiful dresses and palatial environments, we have high jinks in the servants' quarters. The King and Queen are coming to Downton Abbey. The Crawleys are nervous about pulling it off, and Mary asks Carson to come back for the occasion in a panic, though as the Earl tries to point out there is no real need for it. The staff are excited, with the exception of Daisy (Sophie McShera fights valiantly with a couple of pretty unconvincing bolshie lines). Then members of the royal household start arriving and make it clear that they'll be running the whole show, and the resident staff had better just keep out of the way. The servants are miffed at this and plan a coup so they'll be serving the royal couple their luncheon, not the stuck-up interlopers...
Hold on. If a fleet of royal servants would swan in, offer to do my job for a day or two and tell me to curl up with a good book in the meantime - while I'd still be earning my salary - I'd be delighted. And I don't work half as hard as the servants in a manor house in late 1920s' Yorkshire. Something about the whole premise feels wonky, and the stratagems employed by the Downton staff are not overly sophisticated. It feels a little like a children's adventure in period costume. It was fun enough, but I couldn't help begrudging the time spent on this trifle of a plot and on the rest of the royal visit. Geraldine James and Simon ("Bridey") Jones are sweet as the King and Queen - even maybe a little too sweet, as this is the formidable George V and the battleaxe Queen Mary we're talking about - but we're not here to see them, or their daughter, or engage in the latter's marital woes. Yet because of them, many of the main Downton cast are pushed to the background with very little to do at all.
I do get it. Fellowes usually uses a Big Event as a kind of Christmas tree to hang different plots on, and this is the function of the royal visit here. Because of the visit, the Earl's cousin Lady Bagshaw (the Queen's lady in waiting) also visits Downton and is confronted with the Dowager; Tom Branson gets to prove his loyalty to the family once again (but we already knew we could rely on him, didn't we?); the constant struggle to keep the Downton ship afloat makes even Lady Mary question if it's worth hanging on to the monster estate; Lady Edith gets upset when the King proposes to send her husband abroad just at the time she's about to give birth; Anna clashes with a lady's maid who, unlike her, has zero feelings of loyalty towards her employer, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, I couldn't help feeling that the most important of these stories could have been worked into the narrative in another way, without the aid of kings and queens.
Then again, the film delivers on the one front it decidedly had to deliver on for my personal part: Thomas gets a man. All right, they don't actually get together - there's no hanky-panky except for that one snatched kiss which is very chaste by Thomasian standards - but everything is set up for a clandestine love affair. What's more, it's not just an opportunistic "You like guys? I like guys! Let's make out" hook-up. Royal valet Ellis gets a chance to show he truly cares for the accident-prone Thomas and is prepared to help him out of a scrape. In the circumstances, I could not have wished for anything better for my favourite shady manservant.
There is also a rewarding storyline involving the Dowager, Lady Bagshaw, her lady's maid, Branson and Lady Merton (formerly known as Mrs Crawley), who once again acts as the voice of reason. It's nice to see Imelda Staunton, a stellar actress, playing a likeable character such as Lady Bagshaw: I suspect landing a part in the Harry Potter franchise (as the universally hated Dolores Umbridge, whose mannerisms Staunton nailed with skin-crawling accuracy) has proved to be bit of a mixed blessing for her.
I wonder how I would have rated this film if I had still been in the middle of my most fervent Downton obsession. Would I have been disappointed by the lack of core Downton storylines in favour of royal fluff? Or would I have thought: "Thomas has a boyfriend - the rest is immaterial"? I suspect the latter.
First off: if you are a Downton fan, you will enjoy this film. If possible, go and see it in the cinema: not because it necessarily has to be seen on the big screen, but because you will then be in the company of other fans and get a warm, fuzzy feeling of sharing experiences as the audience around you laughs affectionately at Molesley and at the Dowager Countess's witty lines, gasps when Andy behaves even more stupidly than usual or goes "aaah" when Thomas finally gets a kiss from a nice bloke. You will not leave the cinema sad, angry or betrayed, and that, in these times of fandom discontent, is worth quite a lot.
In some ways, though, I can't help thinking this film is a bit of a wasted opportunity. Reviews have described it as exactly like the TV series, and in a way it is, but for most of the time it's not like the TV series at its best. I wouldn't take a Downton newcomer to see this film. If you want to give them a taste of what the show is like, it's better to go for one of the early episodes (and I say that although I have issues with series one) or maybe the first episode of series two. Downton was always at its most thrilling when exploring the relationships between its main characters: love affairs; family ties; friendships; professional relationships; tensions and bonding between employers and staff etc. In the film, there is little room for this kind of interactions, because a royal visit steals most of the limelight.
Yes, as I predicted, the film is, for the most part, a prime example of Simple Downton. We have glamour, we have beautiful dresses and palatial environments, we have high jinks in the servants' quarters. The King and Queen are coming to Downton Abbey. The Crawleys are nervous about pulling it off, and Mary asks Carson to come back for the occasion in a panic, though as the Earl tries to point out there is no real need for it. The staff are excited, with the exception of Daisy (Sophie McShera fights valiantly with a couple of pretty unconvincing bolshie lines). Then members of the royal household start arriving and make it clear that they'll be running the whole show, and the resident staff had better just keep out of the way. The servants are miffed at this and plan a coup so they'll be serving the royal couple their luncheon, not the stuck-up interlopers...
Hold on. If a fleet of royal servants would swan in, offer to do my job for a day or two and tell me to curl up with a good book in the meantime - while I'd still be earning my salary - I'd be delighted. And I don't work half as hard as the servants in a manor house in late 1920s' Yorkshire. Something about the whole premise feels wonky, and the stratagems employed by the Downton staff are not overly sophisticated. It feels a little like a children's adventure in period costume. It was fun enough, but I couldn't help begrudging the time spent on this trifle of a plot and on the rest of the royal visit. Geraldine James and Simon ("Bridey") Jones are sweet as the King and Queen - even maybe a little too sweet, as this is the formidable George V and the battleaxe Queen Mary we're talking about - but we're not here to see them, or their daughter, or engage in the latter's marital woes. Yet because of them, many of the main Downton cast are pushed to the background with very little to do at all.
I do get it. Fellowes usually uses a Big Event as a kind of Christmas tree to hang different plots on, and this is the function of the royal visit here. Because of the visit, the Earl's cousin Lady Bagshaw (the Queen's lady in waiting) also visits Downton and is confronted with the Dowager; Tom Branson gets to prove his loyalty to the family once again (but we already knew we could rely on him, didn't we?); the constant struggle to keep the Downton ship afloat makes even Lady Mary question if it's worth hanging on to the monster estate; Lady Edith gets upset when the King proposes to send her husband abroad just at the time she's about to give birth; Anna clashes with a lady's maid who, unlike her, has zero feelings of loyalty towards her employer, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, I couldn't help feeling that the most important of these stories could have been worked into the narrative in another way, without the aid of kings and queens.
Then again, the film delivers on the one front it decidedly had to deliver on for my personal part: Thomas gets a man. All right, they don't actually get together - there's no hanky-panky except for that one snatched kiss which is very chaste by Thomasian standards - but everything is set up for a clandestine love affair. What's more, it's not just an opportunistic "You like guys? I like guys! Let's make out" hook-up. Royal valet Ellis gets a chance to show he truly cares for the accident-prone Thomas and is prepared to help him out of a scrape. In the circumstances, I could not have wished for anything better for my favourite shady manservant.
There is also a rewarding storyline involving the Dowager, Lady Bagshaw, her lady's maid, Branson and Lady Merton (formerly known as Mrs Crawley), who once again acts as the voice of reason. It's nice to see Imelda Staunton, a stellar actress, playing a likeable character such as Lady Bagshaw: I suspect landing a part in the Harry Potter franchise (as the universally hated Dolores Umbridge, whose mannerisms Staunton nailed with skin-crawling accuracy) has proved to be bit of a mixed blessing for her.
I wonder how I would have rated this film if I had still been in the middle of my most fervent Downton obsession. Would I have been disappointed by the lack of core Downton storylines in favour of royal fluff? Or would I have thought: "Thomas has a boyfriend - the rest is immaterial"? I suspect the latter.
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