The Personal History of David Copperfield (2020)

Directed by Armando Iannucci. Starring Dev Patel, Peter Capaldi, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Aneurin Barnard, Daisy May Cooper, Rosaline Eleazar, Ben Whishaw, Morfydd Clark, Benedict Wong, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Aimee Kelly, Anthony Welsh, Bronagh Gallagher, Paul Whitehouse, Jairaj Varsani, Darren Boyd, Gwendoline Christie, Matthew Cottle. [PG]

Condensed and imaginatively-revised film version of Charles Dickens’ mammoth bildungsroman dedicated to chronicling the life of its titular Victorian-era lad who aspired to become a gentleman. Director Iannucci, best known for his incisive political mockeries, approaches the daunting material with the eye of a satirist, and converts the melodrama into a feisty comedy (though the novel certainly had its share of farcical constructions). The compression threatens to squeeze the humanity right out of the film, however, and although its dizzying pace ensures that boredom never creeps in, it also leaves a number of errant threads as frayed non-entities. Humor and fondness are achieved with shaggy grace, but real empathy is harder to find—the audience is primed to like Copperfield, but not so much to care about him. Therefore, it’s less a satisfying whole then a mosaic of eccentric moments, populated by vividly-sketched characters, some of which are as human as they are alien, as endearing as they are grotesque (aided by Dickens’ delightful talent for bestowing suitable names, particularly to the deplorables, such as the excessively firm Mr. Murdstone and the oily vulture Uriah Heep). In addition to directing and co-writing (with Simon Blackwell), Iannucci also co-produced.

73/100