THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD (2020) FILM REVIEW

*****

PG, 119 Mins

A wonderfully absurd, tragicomic treat.

We currently seem to be in the mode of modernist spins on literary classics from film-makers who seem about as far away from the source materials as you can get. In the past two months, we've had the delectable 'Little Women' (2019) from indie darling Greta Gerwig and - in three weeks time - we're getting a revisionist take on 'Emma' (2020) from American photographer Autumn De Wilde making her directorial debut.

First though, it's in with Armando Iannucci's 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' (2020). The combo of Iannucci + Dickens is by far the most abstract yet - a million miles further off-the-grids than Gerwig + Alcott or Wilde + Austin. The Scottish screenwriter-director behind 'The Thick of It' (2005-2012) and 'Veep' (2012-2019) has his feet in political satire, comedy and Television. Not in social realism, drama and literature. And yet the rococo blend of Victorian mud and soil and postmodern punk and steam couldn't be a match better made in heaven.

One thing everyone craves from an Iannucci production is witty, scabrous dialogue and 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' has this in spades. Iannucci understands the differentiation between the text and the cinematic adaptation; striving not to replicate the great Dickensian lingo word-for-word rather to subvert it. Dictionary-defining lines like "Annual income 20 pounds..." or "Barkis is willin'" have been subsided by 21st century zingers such as "this is a Donkey free zone!" and "We're runied? Like what? Like a castle. How can we be ruined? Like a big castle!"

There's more larynx-choking gags in this movie than in most multiplex comedies, but there's also a delicate string of pathos and tragedy. With his suitably ghastly Soviet satire 'The Death of Stalin' (2017), Iannucci proved he is as much the King of tears as of laughs and his tragicomic bite continues to sink its teeth into proceedings here.

I noted a genuine sense of jeopardy and peril in the film's retainment of the novel's real-world darkness as it addresses child poverty, abuse and exploitation in the most unflinching manner akin to a Ken Loach film. In the horrifically wincing beating scenes, Iannucci injects a reminder of Dickens's status as one of the 19th century's most profound social activists. Something that bodes sombrely well in a world where children continue to be impoverished, abused and exploited. Perhaps proof that some classics are truly timeless.

To the masses, Iannucci is arguably better known as a Screenwriter than a film-maker with his penchant for orally crunching up scenery better suited to the small screen than its bigger, brasher cousin. This Televisual flourish should go hand-in-hand with Dickens whose gruelling miserablism has inspired everything from The Muppets to 'The Wire' (2002-2008). The most unexpected joy therefore is quite how accessible and crucially cinematic 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' really is.

​This is the film that puts the Scottish political critic on the scene as a visual storyteller as much as a linguistic freak. In the early moments of Copperfield as a crib-bound baby, Iannucci puts us directly in the cot; combining a duplicately high and low lensed look at the absudity of the world through a child's eyes. Later on, he speeds up the frames during a drunken, balcony-clammbering trip to the theatre that has some of the slapstick sensibility of Chaplin or Keaton.

With its brand of absurdism and jet-black humour, 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' visually resembles what 'The Favourite' (2019) would look like if directed by Terry Gilliam (albeit with less sex, swearing and surrealism). The production design is as lavish as you'd expect from a period piece, but equally dream-like. It's littered with Lynchian apparitions such as a cottage carved from a ship-wreak on a pebbly beach.

Having watched 'The Personal History of David Copperfield', I'm actually egging to see what a James Bond or 'Star Wars' movie would look like in this film-maker's deft hands. In a capsizing boat vs. waves action sequence, Iannucci is the unlikely master of special-effects spectacle; juggling human awe and pain with audacious results. Such a set-piece is measured perfectly when it comes to dropping jaws in excitement while making you go "C'OR blimey Charlie!" at its neck-breaking physicality.

​Of course none of this film would work as well as it does without the most terrifically diverse cast in recent memory - the true definition of "colour-blind" casting in all its glory. Dev Patel, Benedict Wong, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rosalind Eleazar...they're all in this and then some. However none feel like mere PC box-ticking. Each bring their own to this beautiful patchwork.

Everyone's so brilliant that it seems foolish to single out any one of them, but, you know what, I am foolish so I'll do it anyway! At the centre of it all is Dev Patel who makes the truly definitive Copperfield. He possesses the perfect judgement of lip-blubbering vulnerability and arch-eyebrowed rage essential for a character that has crawled up from the squallors of life.

A truly bonkers turn from Peter Capaldi as Micawber has the sinister edge of craziness disappointingly "eccentri-fied" by his Twelfth Doctor. Hugh Laurie is a delight as the kindly Mr. Dick in a performance redolent of the light comedic touch that made us fall in love with 'Blackadder (1983-1989). Meanwhile - in the role of dasterdly Heap - Ben Whishaw is a baddie for the digital age.

The product of the absurd, real and funny places 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' in the pantheon of great screen Dickens. It's up there with David Lean's 'Great Expectations' (1946), 'Oliver Twist' (1948) and 'Scrooge' (1951) ​and I don't say this lightly!
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