Film Review - The Personal History of David Copperfield (PG)

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

Despite the enduring popularity of Charles Dickens' novels, it's relatively infrequent that his stories are adapted for the big screen. His fiction - densely populated and thick with intertwining plotlines - lends itself more naturally to multi-episode TV productions than cinema. David Copperfield is one of the writer's lengthier and more episodic tomes, a test of any screen writer tasked with paring its 600-plus pages into two hour's worth of film. But that's exactly what Armando Iannucci and his regular co-writer Simon Blackwell have attempted with their re-telling. And it works chiefly due to one clever (and very meta) twist on the tale.

Iannucci's film begins with the mature David (Dev Patel) reading his memoir before a theatre audience - and commencing with the opening line of the novel as quoted above. He steps into his own life at the moment of birth and from there we're introduced to a kaleidoscope of eccentric characters - some benign, others brutal or calculating. Brought up by his widowed mother, his life takes a dark turn when she remarries into the formidable Murdstone family and a darker one still when he's put to a distinctly Victorian form of child labour. But there are points of light as well - the family housekeeper's seafaring family in Yarmouth, his abrupt but golden-hearted great-aunt Betsy Trotwood and Agnes, the warm and clever daughter of a family lawyer. These are the lights that help guide him through life's numerous reversals of fate.

Copperfield the novel is a densely plotted story of interconnected friends and villains; this adaptation does a creditably ruthless job of scything it down into a functional two-hour drama. It's streamlined to a fault - zipping from one scenario to another with deft character portraits on the hoof. The pace is almost too much at first, like a breath-stealing race through Dickens' pages, until that is you grasp what the film is doing. It's David's memories through which we're tumbling, ones that he captured along the way on scraps of paper that ultimately were patched into the story of his growing up.

This is, above all, a story about the writing process and the power of words to immortalise a whole gallery of characters. In that regard it connects significantly with Greta Gerwig's Little Women. There it was Saoirse Ronan's Jo March character effectively embodying author Louisa M. Alcott. Here we have Patel as both David and by extension Dickens himself (Copperfield more than any other protagonist was a surrogate for the author), spinning elements of his experience into an extravagant and life-affirming tale.

This journey within the writer's mind isn't Iannucci's only daring touch. The movie's multi-racial casting - a stumbling-block for some literary purists - combines with the period setting to balance traditional and contemporary elements and provide the story with real freshness. (Dickens' stories are have such a strong fantastical element anyway that the leap to ethnic diversity is a short one.) Additionally we find the writer's brilliant prose dovetailed with the spiky wit and immaculate comic timing of the team that brought us The Thick of It, Veep and The Death of Stalin. It's Dickens for sure, but not as we've experienced his work ever before.

Of course it's the cast that helps sell these innovations. Patel makes for an exuberant David, constantly in motion, but able (as he proved so admirably in Lion) to slow down and access depths of emotion. He's backed up by an ensemble that's been precision-cast. Stand-outs are Tilda Swinton's indomitable Betsy Trotwood, Peter Capaldi's financially precarious Mr Micawber and Ben Whishaw's odious yet sadly pathetic Uriah Heap. But special praise is due for Hugh Laurie as Aunt Betsy's permanent house-guest Mr Dick. More than any other adaptation this one explores the character's struggle with mental illness in what - short of personal friendships - would have been an unforgiving era for the sufferer. It's a beautifully judged tragi-comic performance and a true highlight.

Topped off by Christopher Willis' exhilerating score, this Copperfield is a zesty and uplifting couple of hours. While it does carry some dramatic weight, several of the darker character outcomes are sidestepped in favour of warmth and comedy. Overall it's an unapologetically frothy introduction to the world Charles Dickens premiered back in 1850. And from the director whose comedy has trashed politics on both sides of the Atlantic for the past fifteen years, it's refreshingly cynicism-free. This was a memoir worth creating.

Gut Reaction: Interest (it was one of my 2020 Most Anticipated), adjustment to the style and increasing bursts of laughter - leading to a warm glow on leaving the theatre.

Memorable Moment: Let's go fly a kite.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. Troubled times require stories where open hearts and optimism triumph over the darker angels of human nature. This is one such tale - and it's a good'un. Thank you Messrs Dickens and Iannucci.