Movies: Vanity Fair & 84 Charing Cross Road

I finished watching the A&E/BBC version of “Vanity Fair” this weekend and have to tell you that it was really quite good. And I continue to be flabbergasted that they will be able to turn it into a 2-hour movie. The A&E version was a 6-parter – that’s a lot of material to cut. The music continued to get on my nerves, and boy howdy is Becky Sharp NOT a character you root for at all. But I loved the entire Amelia/Dobbin sideplot and hope they do it justice in the Reese Witherspoon version.

I also watched “84 Charing Cross Road”, an Anne Bancroft/Anthony Hopkins movie from 1986. It is about a NY writer (Bancroft) who goes in search of rare British literature and has to actually contact a London shop to find the good ones. Hopkins is the manager of that shop. It follows their relationship through letters from the early 1940s to present day – always strictly platonic but always witty and familial. In the end the entire shop grows to love Bancroft’s character and writes to her themselves. It definitely feels dated, but it’s based on a book written by the lead “character”, which makes me wonder if it was based on a true story after all. For a 1980s movie, I quite liked it’s simplicity.