一聽音樂網

19世紀的英國，出身貧寒但野心勃勃的貝姬·夏普(瑞茜·威瑟斯朋)，從小就立志不惜用任何手段進入上流社會，本片講述的就是她如何利用自己的美貌與智慧征服世界的歷程。
 
貝姬先是在爵士彼特·考利家擔任家庭教師，在那里，她不但獲得了孩子們的喜歡，還得到了考利家的老處女姑媽瑪蒂爾達的贊賞。但是，貝姬心里清楚，如果不離開鄉村去到倫敦生活就不能真正的進入英國上流社會。所以當瑪蒂爾達姑媽邀請貝姬去倫敦時，貝姬毫不猶豫地接受了邀請。在倫敦，貝姬再次遇到了她在平克敦學院時的好朋友、出身富裕的艾米利亞·塞德利(羅莫拉·蓋瑞)。
 
艾米利亞愛上了迷人的軍官喬治(喬納森·邁勒斯)，并不顧家庭反對毅然嫁給了他，而貝姬也秘密地和羅頓·考利(詹姆斯·普爾弗伊)、考利家族最有可能的繼承人結了婚，瑪蒂爾達一氣之下將新婚的小兩口趕出了家門。這時，拿破侖再次發動了對歐洲各國的戰爭，喬治和羅頓都應召入伍，只剩兩個好友相依為命……
 
by William Ruhlmann
 
William Makepeace Thackeray's satire Vanity Fair (first published in magazine installments, 1874-78) is a "Novel Without a Hero," as its subtitle proclaims, but it is not without a villain who has her reasons: Becky Sharp is a young woman lacking a fortune or a position in British society in the first half of the 19th century and is forced to make her way on her wits while happily unencumbered by scruples or morals. She is, in Thackeray's view, the ideal person in a world full of hypocrisy and materialism. In a contemporary world she is scarcely less so. Director Mira Nair might have attempted a modern version for her film adaptation, but she chose instead to go back to the original setting and cast Reese Witherspoon as Sharp. That compels composer Mychael Danna to write music in the style of the day, which means orchestral scores with classical and romantic antecedents, as well as chamber music. She sets poems by Lord Byron and Alfred, Lord Tennyson to tunes and has them sung by Sissel and Custer LaRue, respectively. She references Beethoven and Haydn, and even flirts anachronistically with Tchaikovsky when she gets to the battle of Waterloo. There isn't much suggestion of Thackeray's social criticism, at least in the music; the composer seems to have concentrated on matching the scenery and the costumes. Toward the end, there are a couple of Indian songs, "El Salaam," by Hakim, and "Gori Re," sung by Shankar Mahadevan and Richa Sharma, that come as a surprise and seem out of place.