What makes it different from others?

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

There's a good chance the film will make you laugh out loud, but if it doesn't, there's an even better chance it will make you openly sob.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Loved this production! I had never read the book (I will now!) but have grown to have a lot of trust in any adaptation that BBC does. I was not disappointed. Especially impressive was the ability of Natasha Little (Becky Sharp) to express Becky's manipulativeness through her subtle facial expressions and subtle use of her eyes and her voice. She was able to convey the mix of wicked cunning and refined pleasantness in a way that was really convincing. Not hard to believe that so many of the characters were completely sucked in by Becky's wiles. This subtle and superb acting ability is often lost in modern films that rely so heavily on on visual/graphic effects to make the point. Bravo,BBC!

I haven't seen the new version (it's not out in the theaters yet here), but the fuss led me to re-watch the DVD of the mini-series. I agree with the comments that this is not the top-of-the-drawer BBC miniseries, although there are some very dramatic scenes, particularly as the venue of the film shifts to Brussels in the lead-up to Waterloo. Natasha Little is indeed bewitching as Becky Sharp, a slippery character if ever there was one, and it will be interesting to see how Reese Witherspoon will cope with this role. Perhaps since Ms. Little is much less well-known than Ms. Witherspoon, she has more scope for creating a unique image of the ambitious Becky Sharp. I look forward to the comparison.

There has been a ridiculous number of movies about psychopathic killers - Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, Copycat, The Cell, etc, etc - and yet for a realistic depiction of a psychopath, this mini-series leaves them all far behind. If you want to see what the average psychopath is like (or perhaps I should say above average, because there is nothing average about Becky Sharp), this is far more true to life than all the others. The reality is that for every Hannibal Lecter in the world, there are a thousand Becky Sharps, and together they do far more damage than all the serial killers. I can only think that Thackeray must have known someone like her, because you can't get this close to reality by sheer imagination, and I don't know of any literary examples he could have copied from.Of course, the novel, and the series, are about far more than one character - they are in fact about Vanity Fair, the world that Thackerary knew and didn't particularly love, the society which was so warped and hypocritical (rather like ours today, in fact) that it allowed characters like Becky Sharp to prosper.This is not nearly as pleasant as the usual BBC mini-series, but it is compulsively watchable; the depiction is almost flawless and Natasha Little does a brilliant job portraying the woman we love to hate. The rest of the cast is also excellent, including Nathaniel Parker as Rawdon, the principal victim of his wife's intrigues, Philip Glenister as the lovable but awfully clumsy Dobbin and David Bradley as the appalling baronet Sir Pitt Crawley.

I enjoyed Vanity Fair. However, it probably won't be on my top ten list of mini-series to watch. I love Andrew Davies work, but the character of Becky Sharp was dialogued rather sparsely. How many times can Ms. Sharp "look sultry and seductive" instead of speaking? The stand-outs in the cast are the man who played William Dobbins (Phillip Glenister) and Joss Sedley (Jeremy Swift).