Jolly good fun bounding up London's social ladder

In a lecture slamming the social-climbing nature of satirist Jonathan Swift, author William Thackeray rhetorically asked, "Would we have liked to live with him?"

One might well ask the same question about the fictional Becky Sharp, adventuress and climber extraordinaire, one whose social conquests are the basis of Thackeray's teeming satire Vanity Fair.

While we wouldn't care to live with Becky, we love, love, love watching her claw her way from the fringes of the social carpet to the heart of London society when the 19th century was in its teens.

Mira Nair's glorious adaptation of Vanity Fair is a triumph for its director and its star, Reese Witherspoon. Between them, they succeed in making Becky a full-blown character who cannot be reduced to the naughty-or-nice conventions of most literary and movie women.

Their Becky is Tom Jones in pantalets, the spiritual godmother of Scarlett O'Hara and Daisy Buchanan (not to mention Liz Taylor and J.Lo), a heartbreaker and home-wrecker who stoops lower and lower only to ascend higher and higher.

The filmmakers take Thackeray's story out of stuffy drawing rooms and onto London's bustling streets, freeing Witherspoon to soar like a rocket hunting for its target, all the while resembling a hummingbird in peacock plumage.

Becky trains her sights first on Jos Sedley, brother of her boon chum Amelia (Romola Garai, Melanie to Witherspoon's Scarlett). When his family spirits Jos out of Becky's reach, she proceeds to bewitch her employer, Pitt Crawley (boisterous Bob Hoskins), and also his roguish son, Rawdon Crawley (James Purefoy in a nuanced turn).

After she elopes and becomes pregnant, Becky still has time and energy to invite the attentions of Amelia's husband, George (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and those of the debauched Marquess of Steyne (Gabriel Byrne).

Not for Nair the subdued dove-greys and sky-blues of so many period pieces. She bathes her satirical panorama in scarlets and golds - the colors of passion and money - and festoons her portrait of London life during the Napoleonic Wars and the plunder of India with paisley shawls, glittering necklaces, and turbans shot with gold.

As the well-honed Miss Sharp, Witherspoon leads with her chin and not her heart. Her presence here links Becky to the actress' striving Tracy Flick in Election and her driven Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, characters who seem like overreachers but manage to firmly grasp their goals. If the Julia Roberts archetype is the working-class gal who challenges the establishment, and the Meg Ryan archetype is the romantic idealist who doesn't initially recognize her ideal, then the emerging Witherspoon archetype is the pragmatic pleasure-seeker who gains position and companionship.

Screenwriters Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes (the last of whom wrote Gosford Park) deftly distill Thackeray's sprawling, 900-page epic into something scaled to a bowl of rum punch. It's a challenge to condense so much incident into 2 1/2 hours (imagine The Lord of the Rings as one film!), yet while their film is not always shapely, it is potent.

The movie has the look and feel of an ornate runaway carriage that cuts its own path through town and country. With Nair at the reins and Witherspoon as the passenger, we are in good hands and spirited company.

Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/carrierickey.

Vanity Fair *** 1/2 (out of four stars)

Produced by Janette Day, Donna Gigliotti and Lydia Dean Pilcher; directed by Mira Nair; written by Matthew Faulk & Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes; photography by Declan Quinn; music by Mychael Danna; distributed by Focus Features.

Running time: 1 hr. 37 min.

Becky Sharp. . . Reese Witherspoon

Rawdon Crawley. . . James Purefoy

Amelia Sedley. . . Romola Garai

George Osborne. . . Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Steyne. . . Gabriel Byrne

Parent's guide: PG-13 (sensuality, partial nudity, brief violent image)

Playing at: area theaters