Review: The Personal History of David Copperfield

An inordinately earnest film from an ordinarily cynical director, The Personal History of David Copperfield can be best described in a word… lovely. 

A retelling of Charles Dickens’ classic novel “David Copperfield”, we follow the story of David (Dev Patel) as he retells his story to an audience of theatre-goers. David is a man with an ear for turns of phrase, a tendency to incur luck (both good and bad), and an ability to answer to more than a few different names. As he goes through life, he interacts with a bevy of interesting characters, including his eccentric aunt (Tilda Swinton) and her equally eccentric cousin (Hugh Laurie), a streetwise con man (Peter Capaldi) and his family, a drunken lawyer (Benedict Wong) and his friendly daughter (Rosalind Eleazar), and many more. All of them make up the fabric and texture of his own story. 

Once the credits roll on this film, you find yourself left with a wonderfully warm feeling in the film’s wake. It stands out as something uniquely optimistic, and the sort of movie that isn’t all too common any more, or at least not commonly well done. 

The strength of Copperfield is in its open-heartedness, and its willingness to side-step traditional movie plotting and lean into its novel-esque structure. A large, overarching narrative would have weakened this film. I enjoyed one misadventure following another, because I loved all these characters; I liked spending time with them being the forefront of the movie. I suppose that is the overarching narrative in some ways, which is David accruing all these people in his life that inspire his book. But, that’s very loose and a nice way to tie things together. It feels like we are hopping from one event to the next, and I quite enjoyed that. 

The performances across the board were wonderful, with Dev Patel turning in yet another magnificent lead performance. The supporting cast is potentially the strongest you’ll see in any movie this year, and they all light up the screen each time they enter a scene. 

The Personal History of David Copperfield is helmed by acclaimed writer/director Armando Iannucci. If you aren’t aware of his credits, he has helmed the films In the Loop and The Death of Stalin, as well as creating the TV shows The Thick of It and Veep and co-creating several Alan Partridge vehicles. He’s comedic royalty, at least to me. His work is usually quite satirical and especially vulgar, none of which really apply to this film. He seems to have intentionally flipped the script in making a heartwarming PG movie, similar to how David Mamet made the PG rated The Spanish Prisoner (which is quite excellent it should be noted). He doesn’t have his usual group of co-writers here, writing with longtime producer Kevin Loader. That’s not to say this movie doesn’t contain his particular use of dialogue either. It has the lightning fast cleverness that one would expect from an Iannucci film but all in the service of kindness and warmth. 

The movie in turn inherits a rather anachronistic bent. Characters sound a little less like Dickens’ adapted creations and more like Dickens as interpreted through Iannucci’s very specific lens. He also keeps up his recent tradition of casting characters regardless of their either written description or historical accuracy. In The Death of Stalin, the entire cast talks in their natural dialects, regardless of the fact that they are playing Russians in Russia. Here, his cast is comprised of the people he seemed to find most interesting for each part, and the logic of making things ethnically or racially consistent is thrown out the window. None of that really matters, especially in a movie like this. This movie is a fantastical piece of fiction, and his casting choices are an extension of the mood he’s trying to create. 

Although, the movie isn’t without its share of problems either. One of the positives in the movie is its narrative flow. It’s very fast and things happen in quick succession. Yet, that is also one of its negatives. It can feel overstuffed at times, and there isn’t any room for it to breath. There’s just too much going on. I supposed that is a natural extension of adapting a 600+ page book into a 2 hour film. This can make things feel as though they are happening far too fast. Because of this, some of the specific relationships between David and other characters don’t feel quite as developed, there just isn’t the screen time. However, in most movies that would be far more of a negative. The movie’s earnestness grants each relationship a bit of added weight. They inform each other and give context to one another. So, even when one specific element ends up weaker it doesn’t affect the feeling of the whole. Which is to say, the collective experiences David goes through and people who come to matter to him throughout his life outweigh any potential weak interaction. By the end of the movie, I am thrilled to see people all together, because, just like David, I too have grown fond of all these people with all their quirks and eccentricities. Just like David cares for people either despite or because of their flaws, the same goes for the movie itself. 

Conclusion:

The Personal History of David Copperfield is a big-hearted, loving movie. It’s warm and inviting and cares for its characters as much as they care for each other. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend that you give it a watch