The Personal History of David Copperfield | Little White Lies

The Per­son­al His­to­ry of David Copperfield

21 Jan 2020 / Released: 24 Jan 2020

Words by Lou Thomas

Directed by Armando Iannucci

Starring Dev Patel, Hugh Laurie, and Tilda Swinton

A man in a suit and bow tie stands in front of a brick building, with horse-drawn carriages in the background.
A man in a suit and bow tie stands in front of a brick building, with horse-drawn carriages in the background.
3

Anticipation.

Dickens? Yawn. Iannucci? Yay!

4

Enjoyment.

Charming and hilarious, Dickens sans stodge.

4

In Retrospect.

Needed to be fresh and fun to justify its existence and it is, often thanks to that scorching ensemble cast.

Arman­do Ian­nuc­ci trades satire for spir­it­ed peri­od com­e­dy in a Charles Dick­ens adap­ta­tion for the ages.

On paper, yet anoth­er Charles Dick­ens screen adap­tion is an uned­i­fy­ing prospect. The Vic­to­ri­an author cre­at­ed some of Britain’s most mem­o­rable char­ac­ters, but must we keep turn­ing to him for our mod­ern visu­al entertainment?

Scot­tish com­e­dy stal­wart and avowed Dick­ens super­fan Arman­do Ian­nuc­ci has built up such a fine body of work, per­haps he should be afford­ed some lenien­cy before view­ers tack­le The Per­son­al His­to­ry of David Cop­per­field. If any­one can breathe life into this dusty old tale, sure­ly it’s the man who cre­at­ed The Thick of It and co-birthed Alan Par­tridge. Glad­ly, any lenien­cy is reward­ed with a fresh take on Dick­ens’ own favourite – and most per­son­al – story.

Dev Patel heads up a live­ly ensem­ble cast as the epony­mous aspi­rant who ris­es from a tough upbring­ing to even­tu­al lit­er­ary fame and for­tune. Scenes between young Cop­per­field, played ini­tial­ly by Jairaj Varsani, and nurse­maid Pegot­ty (Daisy May Coop­er) pro­vides ear­ly warmth, but hap­pi­ness is short-lived when his wid­owed moth­er mar­ries the vio­lent­ly abu­sive Mr Murd­stone (Dar­ren Boyd). Worse luck, Murdstone’s sin­is­ter sib­ling Jane (Gwen­do­line Christie) is brought in as a house­keep­er and Cop­per­field is sent to school and a ghast­ly bot­tle fac­to­ry, a nod to Dick­ens’ own upbringing.

Cop­per­field also has a stint liv­ing with the debt-rav­aged Mr Micaw­ber (Peter Capal­di) and his fam­i­ly before Micaw­ber ends up in debtor’s prison, just as Dick­ens’ own father did. Away from the city there is com­fort when he stays at the plush, wel­com­ing coun­try home of his aunt Bet­sey Trot­wood (Til­da Swin­ton) where pecu­niary mat­ters aren’t so press­ing, even if mon­ey woes return when dark­ly obse­quious clerk Uri­ah Heep (Ben Whishaw) tries to swin­dle Trotwood.

Four people sitting at a table outdoors in a grassy field, surrounded by trees. The group includes a man and three women, all dressed in period costumes.

Writer/​director /​producer Ian­nuc­ci, work­ing with reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tor and co-writer Simon Black­well, has jet­ti­soned a sig­nif­i­cant amount of gloom from the source mate­r­i­al (par­tic­u­lar­ly the fate of Copperfield’s first love inter­est Dora) to make the fun­ni­est and most enter­tain­ing adap­ta­tion of this sto­ry to date. It’s such a crowd-pleas­ing and per­son­able piece, it’s sur­pris­ing this was made by the same man behind The Death of Stal­in, a film as bit­ter­ly macabre as it is hilarious.

Yet there’s still dark­ness here amid the jol­li­ty. Dick­en­sian themes of child­hood abuse, loss, impris­on­ment and pover­ty can’t be escaped no mat­ter how much fun this take is. It’s no leap to con­nect the on-screen action to the cur­rent British age of food banks, aus­ter­i­ty and just-getting-by.

What Cop­per­field does have in com­mon with The Death of Stal­in, though, is an excep­tion­al group of actors at the top of their game. Hugh Lau­rie excels as Mr Dick, Trotwood’s bonkers lodger. Three qua­si-moth­er fig­ures are fas­ci­nat­ing in their own way, with Christie’s vil­lain­ous Jane, Cooper’s big-heart­ed Pegot­ty and Swinton’s scene-steal­ing Trot­wood so much fun to watch, you some­times wish the film was about one of them.

That said, Patel is pleas­ing­ly charis­mat­ic, while Capal­di is typ­i­cal­ly wily as Micaw­ber and Whishaw’s Heep is unpleas­ant­ly oily, with a hair­cut as sin­is­ter as his man­ner. All of which ensures a classy, spir­it­ed peri­od com­e­dy-dra­ma. We were right to be lenient.

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