• Fun
• Romantic

‘Vanity Fair’ (2018)

I’m not sure why I slept so long on Prime Video’s 2018 adaptation of Vanity Fair, but I’m glad I got around to binging it eventually. House of the Dragon standout Olivia Cooke stars as the indelible Becky Sharp, William Makepiece Thackeray’s (Michael Palin) ambitious anti-heroine. Becky is the orphaned daughter of an artist and an opera singer who is blessed with beauty, charm, talent, and intelligence, but not a single society connection. By glomming onto her pet student, Amelia (Claudia Jessie), Becky comes close to marrying above her station, but her plan is foiled. Only after Becky takes her reluctant place as a governess, does she start to successfully put the wheels in motion of a plan to have it all, in a time and place where social climbing was definitely not a thing. Becky’s story is supposed to be a cautionary tale — as Amelia is the story’s pure-hearted heroine — but it’s hard not to admire her gumption. Vanity Fair is a charming modern period drama with a stacked cast including Cooke, Jessie, Johnny Flynn, Sir Simon Russell Beale, Sian Clifford, and more.