The Personal History of David Copperfield

Date: 12/10/2021 Times: 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm

Here is another film from 2019 that we have sadly missed being able to show. You may have seen it but it repays a second visit. The Guardian placed it 16th in the list of best films for 2019 and said it was ‘one of the most satisfying Charles Dickens adaptations for years with this imaginative take on the classic, anchored by a never-better Dev Patel’.At the 2019 British Independent Film Awards, it won Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, for Hugh Laurie, Best Casting, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design.

In his third film as director, following his farce of bumbling and bloody Kremlin power struggles, Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci has turned to Dickens’ most quintessential and autobiographical novel with the same zeal he previously reserved for political parody. The Personal History of David Copperfield is one of the more lively, colorful and whimsical Victorian costume dramas you’re likely to see. Iannucci, famed for his improvisational style and expletive-laden barrages (TV’s The Thick of It), clearly finds in Dickens a writer simpatico in fondness for language and taste for multitudes. In many ways, they make a good match, with Iannucci’s more anarchic, free-wheeling style animating the wit and idiosyncrasies of Dickens’ tome.

And just as in the absurdly deep bench of Veep, casting has made a difference. Dev Patel winningly plays Copperfield, once out of childhood (as a boy, he’s played by compelling youngsters Jairaj Varsani and Ranveer Jaiswal), with wide-eyed wonder, always alive to the world around him, if generally rather mystified by it. Still, the film belongs largely to the overall cast, including Tilda Swinton, as David’s aunt Betsey Trotwood; Hugh Laurie as the mentally ill, King Charles I-obsessed Mr. Dick; Peter Capaldi as the creditor-evading Wilkins Micawber; Rosalind Eleazar as the romantic interest Agnes Wickfield; Benedict Wong as the wine-swilling Mr. Wickfield; Ben Whishaw as the plotting Uriah Heep. The performers, a distinctly multicultural cast, add considerably to the vibrancy of the film, collectively making a fairly irrefutable argument for colorblind casting, for anyone who needs one.

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