And yes, the purists are right — this is a departure from Thackeray’s vision. But why can’t both exist? Nair doesn’t claim her interpretation as gospel, so why take it as such? This isn’t the first or last movie to radically shift the perspective of classic source material — take Jane Campion’s Portrait of a Lady, which cast Nicole Kidman in a subversive adaptation of the Henry James classic, or even the zillions of rom-coms and dramas based on Shakespeare plays. Is 10 Things I Hate About You a poor reading of The Taming of the Shrew because it updates the play’s themes to suit modern-day sensibilities? In fact, at this point, not to glean fresh meaning from a classic is to be out of the loop. Nair was arguably ahead of her time.