A film review: The Personal History of David Copperfield.
This is a fun, feel-good film; the kind of film that lightens the heart and smooths the roughest of days. It’s a riot of colour and eternal optimism, a whimsical delight.
Is it twee? Absolutely.
Is it a tad nauseating at times? Absolutely.
But I didn’t care about that, and I suspect you won’t either.
It’s the story of Dickens’ David Copperfield, told by David Copperfield as a recital in a theatre. An original, if not a slightly peculiar way of presenting a film. But it works, it makes the tale much more personal, and it wraps it up nicely at the end.
For those who don’t know the story, David was born into a rural household consisting of his mother and a maid, Peggotty, a bubbly, blustery, wonder of a woman. David grows to, I would say ten or so , in a bubble of love and apparent security.
However, this is the early Victorian era, and David’s father died before he was born. David’s mother is a woman alone. Recently I reviewed an excellent book called The Five, by Hallie Rubenhold, which covers, amongst other things, the precariousness of a Victorian woman’s life.
So, cue the wicked step father and, for good measure, the wicked step-aunt—played bizarrely, as I only watched her on Game of the Thrones the night before, by Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth).
David is sent away, first to Peggotty’s relatives in Great Yarmouth who live in an upturned boat and then, after his step-father wants rid of him, to lodge with Mr Micawber in London and work in a child labour bottling factory run by, you guessed it, his wicked step-father. The landlord, played by Peter Capaldi, is a jolly ‘something will turn up’ man permanently out of work (although I doubt that he was ever in it). And permanently on the sponge for money.
From there the tale weaves its way through an aunt, then boarding school, then work, then first love, then happy ending.
There are many parts played by some great actors.
For me Tilda Swinton was the best, just. She played David’s aunt, Betsey Trotwood who, for some strange reason, has a thing against donkeys.
Hugh Laurie plays Mr Dick, an extremely confused man who can’t rid himself of the internal monologue of Charles I, the Stuart king that was beheaded by Cromwell, unless he flies a kite. A role he won a BIFA for.
Morfydd Clark, Mina in the BBC Dracula, I thought wonderful as the heart-of-gold natured, but a little soppy Dora, David’s first love. This love provoking a wonderful scene of David seeing all things Dora in all places in London.
And finally, Ben Whishaw (Q, amongst his many other fine roles), as the fawning, slimy, rogue Uriah Heep
You’ll watch better films, more thoughtful films, films that will make you cry and films that will make you hide behind the sofa. But you’ll struggle to watch one that is just such good fun.
Well worth it.
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