The Personal History of David Copperfield ** (2019, Dev Patel, Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton, Peter Capaldi, Ben Whishaw) – Movie Review

Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie run away with the acting honours in co-writer / director Armando Iannucci’s misguided reimagining of the Charles Dickens classic novel as a raucous romp, with Dev Patel working hard, earnestly and honorably as a reimagined David Copperfield. Couldn’t it have been a bit more fun and funnier, and also darker and more dramatic? The cosily familiar material creaks and groans a bit as it moves along. Well, it’s very old now.

It says a whole lot for Swinton and Laurie that are actually funny, as well as charming, as crazy old aunt Betsey Trotwood and her companion daft old Mr Dick. They get loads of the film to do, and deserve it, though it does slightly overbalance the movie.

Less good, though getting away with it OK are Peter Capaldi with too much screen time as Mr Micawber, Ben Whishaw as an awkward, ever so ‘umble Uriah Heep, and Paul Whitehouse as Mr Peggotty.

Other good actors are considerably less effective in parts that should be guaranteed, including Benedict Wong as Mr Wickfield, Bronagh Gallagher as Mrs Micawber, Darren Boyd as Edward Murdstone, Gwendoline Christie as Jane Murdstone and Aneurin Barnard as Steerforth.

Iannucci seems so busy trying to raise laughs that he often seems to have forgotten Charles Dickens entirely as he romps through the classic’s many pages, multiple characters and complex storylines at a fair old trot (or a fair old Trotwood perhaps). On the other hand, the film looks like a Dickens adaptation, with loving production values (Production Design by Cristina Casali) and cinematography (Zac Nicholson). But it can’t be trusted as a faithful Dickens adaptation to show teenagers who need a quick fix when swotting up on their Eng lit exams. This is a TV style series of sketches loosely connected into a raucous romp, in the spirit of the 1963 classic Tom Jones, but without its style and achievement, or its sexy chicken eating.

The film remains pretty fast moving and mostly agreeable, at least when Swinton and Laurie are on screen. It comes in painlessly at under two hours at 119 minutes, Dickens light, and ultimately disposable and forgettable.

Other versions include the 1935 classic David Copperfield with Freddie Bartholomew, Frank Lawton, Edna May Oliver and W C Fields and the 1970 David Copperfield with Robin Phillips, Richard Attenborough, Cyril Cusack and Edith Evans. Making his debut, Daniel Radcliffe plays Young David in the 1999 two-part BBC mini-series David Copperfield.

Featured in the film is the Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, where Dickens stayed and set part of his book The Pickwick Papers.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Movie Review

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