Nicholas Nickleby (2002)

Directed by Douglas McGrath. Starring Charlie Hunnam, Christopher Plummer, Jim Broadbent, Romola Garai, Jamie Bell, Nathan Lane, Anne Hathaway, Edward Fox, Juliet Stevenson, Stella Gonet, Timothy Spall, Barry Humphries, Gerard Horan, Tom Courtenay. [PG]

Rare attempt to adapt Charles Dickens’ massive tome, “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby”, into a feature-length film instead of a miniseries/serial for television, and although this condensed version does suffer from missing a lot of the details which would make the narrative progression feel less contrived and the supporting characters more clearly defined, the spirit is intact, and some of the episodes are keenly developed. The young man of the title (played by Hunnam) sets off on his own after the death of his father, acquiring a handicapped-yet-resilient sidekick (Bell), falling in love with a young artist (Hathaway) plagued by family debts, and locking horns with his conniving and coldhearted uncle (Plummer). The cartoonish wretchedness of the villains, including Broadbent’s rotund and hateful schoolmaster, breathes squalid life into a long sequence of events that too often flit by before real meaning gets attached to them. At the center, although I recognize the protagonists in most Dickens yarns are typically among the least eccentric and embellished characters on hand, Hunnam’s well-meaning hero is awfully bland and ingenuous (not the actor’s strong suit). I’m not sure how devotees of the book will respond—their familiarity with the material may make it easier to follow along and fill in the holes, or they may be upset by all the revisions and excisions on hand. Numerous recognizable British character actors (including David Bradley, Alan Cumming, and Sophie Thompson) fill out the ample cast roster in small roles.

64/100