You know, of all the movies I saw trailers for before the pandemic that I am really sorry I was completely unable to see in theaters, oddly enough, I think The Personal History of David Copperfield might have been the one I missed the most. I knew director/co-writer Armando Iannucci mostly as someone who did political satire, and I really enjoyed The Death of Stalin when I saw it. Somehow, he decided to adapt one of the best known works of Charles Dickens, and this time, he was going for more of a broad comedy in many respects and not the sort of straightforward work of, say, the 1935 American version. That one had comedian W.C. Field playing a somewhat comedic role, but otherwise was deadly earnest. Iannucci had a daffy-looking young woman pretending to talk through a lap dog, and his David was being played by Dev Patel in what looked like a more surreal take on the story.
But the pandemic did happen, so I didn’t see it in theaters and had to settle for HBO Max. Oh well.
The central framing device of most of this movie is that this is David Copperfield telling what looks like a live audience his life story. In between bits here and there, we get moments where David stops to write out what happened or he hopes will happen to him. Essentially, this David is Dickens telling the story of David Copperfield with all the eccentric oddballs and weirdos who may live in houses that are overturned boats or who believe the dead king of England’s thoughts are stuck in his mind. As an exercise of comparison–because I have still not read Dickens’s original novel–Patel’s David doesn’t come across as earnest or naive as his 1932 counterpart, but he’s the one telling his story right now. If anything, his efforts to frame the narrative doesn’t always work out as the story he’s trying to tell is often fighting reality. This isn’t the sort of story where David and his friends all come together to wrap everything up in some sort of big happy ending. That doesn’t mean David can’t get a happy ending, but my memory of the 1932 movie–again, I have not read the Dickens original–tells me he can get a happy ending but not a contrived one.
But this is more of the story of David Copperfield as something of a broad comedy. The movie announces itself that way almost immediately with the first appearance of Tilda Swinton as David’s eccentric, rich aunt, and the first time we see her it is a close-up as she smashes her nose against a window. It goes from there. I found Peter Capaldi especially fun as Mr. Micawber, a man so deeply in debt to everyone that he can’t even walk down the street without being followed by a mob of creditors, leading to some rather creative ways to avoid the people he owes money to. If anything, I was a bit surprised that Hugh Laurie’s Mr. Dick was so restrained by comparison. This isn’t really a slapstick kind of comedy. It’s more just surreal and strange.
Quite frankly, I like surreal and strange, and additionally, this are some truly colorblind casting decisions to be seen among some of the main cast. Besides Patel’s David there’s Benedict Wong as drunken solicitor Mr. Wickfield and Rosalind Eleazar as his daughter. At no point does the movie acknowledge the different actor’s races or make an issue of it. That strikes me as a good thing. Patel is a good actor, and while his role as central protagonist may not be the funniest or the most flashy, he is the one telling the story, so having him as the normal guy surrounded by oddballs works.
Ultimately, this may not be the most political of Iannucci’s movies, but it is his attempt to put a stamp on Dickens with his distinct sense of humor. It’s a movie where a man can become a more functioning member of society just by flying a kite while the general decency of its protagonist’s friends and family may not lead them to a happy conclusion of events, but it sure can help. The Uriah Heeps of the world may not get what is coming to them in reality, so maybe they shouldn’t get what’s coming to them in the world of David Copperfield either. That doesn’t mean a dreamer can make something of himself. He just needs to realize what he thinks he wants may not be the best route to get there.
Grade: B+
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