The Personal History of David Copperfield is the latest project from writer and director Armando Ianucci, who has worked on other such hilarious movies and TV shows like Death of Stalin, The Thick of It and Veep. It is of course a brand new adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens story, a story that is no stranger to being constantly told and retold over the years. Dickens stories have always had an element of humour and the absurd about them, even as characters find themselves beset by poverty and misery at every turn. This version is no exception.
The basic outline of the plot is that an older and wiser David Copperfield has written a play based on the many places and people from his eventful life and is now presenting them to an audience for the first time. The film begins on the stage, but as Dev Patel as Copperfield starts to narrate what's going on, the film transitions into flashback scenes depicting what happened. The film charts his life from a young boy living happily with his widowed mother and housemaid, Peggoty all the way through to when he is a fully grown adult, with his fortunes falling and lifting many times along the way.
There are many colourful characters to meet as the tale unfolds, including Mr Micawber (played by Peter Capaldi), Betsey Trotwood and Mr Dick (Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie), and Uriah Heep (Ben Wishaw) among many others. Hugh Laurie stood out in particular to me - it was lovely to see him going back to playing an affable buffoon again after having played House for so many years. Mr Dick did remind me quite a bit of Prince George from Blackadder II, though he is quite a bit more intelligent than him, just a bit absent minded due to what I assume is Alzheimer's at a time in history where no one knows what that is.
Of course, one of the major problems of having to squeeze such as lengthy and dense book into the space of a couple of hours is that you will have to leave certain things out, and there's also a risk of events going by too fast. I feel that this adaptation does suffer from these things as well. I also found it rather strange that characters have been cast in roles no matter which race they are. I'm all for ethnic diversity and inclusionism, but it is a bit strange for a child to be a completely different race from both of their parents. It did break the immersion for me I have to admit.
If you are unfamiliar with the story (as I was) then I don't really think that this version is a very good place to start. It moves through the years and characters at such a rapid pace that it's rather hard to keep up with things. You would have a much better time with it if you have read the novel already, I think. As a comedy though, The Personal History of David Copperfield is a roaring success - I laughed out loud on more than one occasion and did still thoroughly enjoy myself even when I wasn't completely sure of what was going on, or why.
The basic outline of the plot is that an older and wiser David Copperfield has written a play based on the many places and people from his eventful life and is now presenting them to an audience for the first time. The film begins on the stage, but as Dev Patel as Copperfield starts to narrate what's going on, the film transitions into flashback scenes depicting what happened. The film charts his life from a young boy living happily with his widowed mother and housemaid, Peggoty all the way through to when he is a fully grown adult, with his fortunes falling and lifting many times along the way.
There are many colourful characters to meet as the tale unfolds, including Mr Micawber (played by Peter Capaldi), Betsey Trotwood and Mr Dick (Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie), and Uriah Heep (Ben Wishaw) among many others. Hugh Laurie stood out in particular to me - it was lovely to see him going back to playing an affable buffoon again after having played House for so many years. Mr Dick did remind me quite a bit of Prince George from Blackadder II, though he is quite a bit more intelligent than him, just a bit absent minded due to what I assume is Alzheimer's at a time in history where no one knows what that is.
Of course, one of the major problems of having to squeeze such as lengthy and dense book into the space of a couple of hours is that you will have to leave certain things out, and there's also a risk of events going by too fast. I feel that this adaptation does suffer from these things as well. I also found it rather strange that characters have been cast in roles no matter which race they are. I'm all for ethnic diversity and inclusionism, but it is a bit strange for a child to be a completely different race from both of their parents. It did break the immersion for me I have to admit.
If you are unfamiliar with the story (as I was) then I don't really think that this version is a very good place to start. It moves through the years and characters at such a rapid pace that it's rather hard to keep up with things. You would have a much better time with it if you have read the novel already, I think. As a comedy though, The Personal History of David Copperfield is a roaring success - I laughed out loud on more than one occasion and did still thoroughly enjoy myself even when I wasn't completely sure of what was going on, or why.
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