The Bonfire of the Vanities

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The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

Rate: 6
Viewed: 8/03, 2/05, 5/17

BonfireV
5/17: I finished reading The Bonfire of the Vanities for the second time and went to the film to see how it compares with the book.

I know it has a notorious reputation for being one of the worst book-to-film adaptations ever, but honestly, it's not bad. The only misgiving I have is the casting of Morgan Freeman. As much as I like him, his cartoonish character ruins the film. I was thinking more of Daniel Benzali for the part because of his white bald look.

As for the rest of the cast, it's perfect. While reading the book, I imagined Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, Melanie Griffith as Maria Ruskin, Kim Cattrall as Judy McCoy, John Hancock as Reverend Bacon, Saul Rubinek as Jed for Lawrence Kramer (why the name change anyway?), Donald Moffat as John Campbell McCoy, and F. Murray Abraham as Abe Weiss. Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow is interesting because his character is supposed to be English.

Just like Snake Eyes, the best part is the opening Steadicam shot. It has to be tough to pull off. The rest of the film is fine, but I wish there were more incorporations of well-known Bonfire phrases such as "social x-ray," "the girl with the brown lipstick," and "the Master of the Universe." Tom Wolfe saw the film more than three times but felt there was something missing. Yeah, I agree with him. I'm not sure what it is, apart from Morgan Freeman, and it seems to follow the outline of the plot faithfully. Yet there's still something missing.

All in all, The Bonfire of the Vanities was the book of the decade for the 80's, and Brian De Palma has done a good job by trying hard to match Tom Wolfe's vision of how the events went down but fails to make it Wolfesian enough.