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Topic: Re:The Personal History of David Copperfield
Posted by: Joe Conneely
Date/Time: 26/01/20 22:12:00

A lifetime of BBC TV adaptations of Dickens main novels left me interested in seeing this film given its promise to be different. The director Armando Iannucci as anyone who saw Death of Stalin will know, likes to mix things up whether it was the accents in that earlier film or in this case the ethnicity of the cast, having decided to use Dev Patel in the lead role.To be honest after 10 minutes that aspect quickly falls away and doesn't intrude on the story.

Using a set up of DC doing a theatre reading of his novel allows the adult DC to feature all through as both actor and narrator as his story is told in flashback. The film certainly goes at a pace with many of the well known characters in the novel appearing rapidly but by half way I was finding it all too much a kaleidoscope of events and almost cartoonesque in its depictions.

There is an all star British cast with alongside Dev Patel in the lead role, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Lawrie and Peter Capaldi as Mr Micawber alongside many lesser known but impressive actors, but for me the one character who I found grabbing my attention most whenever he was on screen was Ben Whishaw. As Uriah Heep he avoided the caricatures this role normally attracts and instead conveyed the bitterness and venom that finally leads to his undoing. 

The novel was allegedly Dickens favourite of all those he wrote - I came out after two hours viewing thinking the reason may well be the story showing the many up and downs he suffered in his own life which at the pace this adaptation operates felt like a roller coaster ride.

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