The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

Plot of The Bonfire of the Vanities: Sherman McCoy is a privileged Wall Street bond trader who lives in a large wonderfully appointed apartment with his unbelievably posh wife. He is having an affair with Maria Ruskin, who is married to the older Arthur Ruskin. When they are in Sherman’s Mercedes returning to Maria’s apartment, they take a wrong turn and end up in a war zone, being threatened by two young black men. Sherman has left the car to remove a tyre from their path and when he is threatened Maria drives the Mercedes at them, accidentally running down one of them.  They get onto the freeway and escape, but do not report the incident – obviously. The DA is aiming to get elected as mayor of New York, so wants to show he can prosecute white dudes who have injured black men, so Sherman is revealed as the driver of the car, attracting the attention of journalist Peter Fallow, and the attention, in time, of his former friends and acquaintances. Sherman has to appear in court in the Bronx and is briefly imprisoned, but the case is shaky and alliances out there keep changing. How can it all end?

Content: No sex or nudity although Maria get down to her underwear a few times. Sherman swans about making money by doing almost nothing, his role in life explained contemptuously by his wife to his daughter. Maria returns to New York on Concorde. The plane is seen landing. Sherman takes his dog for a walk in the rain to telephone her. They meet in her apartment which is, it turns out, rent controlled and illegally sublet. Peter Fallow is seen out and about being drunk. There is quite a bit of drinking. Maria’s husband dies while consuming a cocktail. Sherman and Maria are threatened in the Bronx. The DA gets his attack dogs onto finding out who ran down the black boy. The Reverend Bacon raises Caine, with choral accompaniment. Sherman is in court which is controlled by a black judge, and he is also briefly imprisoned.

A View: What to say about this outing? I loved the book and was offended by the casting of Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow and, as it turns out, so were a lot of other people. The film was a disaster at least in part attributed to the adjustments to the plot to make it more audience friendly, particularly the casting of Tom Hanks as Sherman.  But despite its failings there are some wonderful individual scenes, some of them laugh out loud funny and Morgan Freeman is stunning as Judge White keeping his disorderly court in order. So in my view, well worth a watch but not up to the standard of the book.

Fun Fact: Julie Salamon, film critic of the Wall Street Journal was given unlimited access to the making of the film, resulting in a book, ‘The Devil’s Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco.