The Personal History of David Copperfield (Film Review)

[selenak]

This was the first movie I saw in the cinema since February, and I've been curious about it for a year now. It's, as advertised, a breathless, fast paced, wildly inventive version of David Copperfield, directed by Armado Ianucci, with a great cast multiethnic cast (colourblind in the British stage sense, hence, for example, Nikki Amuka-Bird as Mrs

Comments

[kathyh]

I was lucky enough to see this last year at the London Film Festival and I very much enjoyed it but I did feel Armando Ianucci erred too much on the side of the fun and lightness of the book and missed out the sadness that gives the story a lot of its impact. What he did with Dora was very clever but it meant that you didn't see the true pathos of that side of David's life. I agree that Dev Patel and Aneurin Barnard had no chemistry but I thought having David meet Steerforth later on blunted the impact of their friendship too as it wasn't of such long-standing. All great fun to watch though.

[selenak]

Absolutely, and we agree on missing out the sadness. I mean, I understand he wanted to get away from "worthy", super-grim Dickens on film, but this isn't the "Pickwick Papers".

David and Steerforth: yes, exactly. Also, while in the novel, it's a matter of interpretation how much or little this friendship means to Steerfoth, whereas David early on hero-worships him and even post-disillusionment loves him, the film gave me the impression that David likes Steerforth okay, but never adores him, and already sees through him post-Micawber (in lieu of the teacher in the novel) incident and if anything Steerforth is more invested in David than the other way around.