The Personal Story of David Copperfield
The controversy over this film is the degree of diversity in the casting where virtually every family seems to be of mixed parentage.
My own view is to quote Oscar Wilde:
“There is no such thing as a pornographic book: it’s either good or bad.”
In my view this was a good film, well paced, well-acted and pretty faithful to the book.
Dev Patel gives a fine performance as David Copperfield but there are equally memorable performances from Peter Capaldi as Mr. Micawber, Ben Wilshaw as Uriah Heep, Hugh Laurie as Mr Dick and Paul Whitehouse as Peggaty.
Paul Whitehorse appeared in the 1997 TV series as the pawnbroker.
A film is a work of fiction or even fantasy. It matters not if it is adapted to a modern form.
A.N. Wilson is just a fusty old reactionary for saying it is not Dickens.
It’s not free of faults.
The device of David Copperfield starting with a lecture on his book and life generates confusing flash-backs and some of the acting is uneven.
Yet I enjoyed it, as the midweek audience seemed to as well, more than any other recent film I have seen and applaud Armando Iannucci.
Ironically the only Oscar nomination is for the casting director, Sarah Crowe. Iannucci’s Death of Stalin was an imaginative piece of film-making and – though no Kubrick – he is fast-emerging like him as a versatile director.
At very least he is breaking the production line of films about oppressed women of which Bombshell is the latest offering.
The film makes a great story teller like Dickens accessible to a younger audience of which – as a commercial writer in newspapers – Dickens would have thoroughly approved.
