I always look forward to any new work by Armando Iannucci and am only disappointed about half of the time. The Personal History of David Copperfield is, unfortunately, one of those times. Iannucci’s retelling of the Charles Dickens classic is an ambitious project with no small amount of potential, but it never fully forms into what could have been a truly captivating experience. Copperfield can’t live up to the whimsy it attempts, which is a shame because if it had, it could have been something remarkable.
The problem with Iannucci’s attempt at a Gilliam-esque world of fanciful characters and off-kilter history is that he doesn’t go far enough. Gilliam has a knack for tapping into the imaginative side of our brains by creating worlds that are recognizable as our own, but possess a certain dystopian magic that, while not altogether “realistic,” is still relatable through our collected fears and frustrations.
In The Personal History of David Copperfield, Iannucci stumbles across this formula but never commits to it. We’re given sparse glimpses into the inventive mind of an artist as he struggles through his life, but we never get a full sense that he actually is an artist until the third act when he abruptly declares it. Throughout the film, Iannucci time and again misses opportunities to explore the wonders of creativity by embracing his inner-Gilliam and speeding full-throttle into exciting, dreamlike approximations of reality. That these potentials are obvious and even haphazardly and infrequently used, serves only to further frustrate those who are patiently waiting for something truly magical to happen.
As is, we simply follow along as David Copperfield (Dev Patel) navigates the ups and downs of the Victorian class system while never getting a pure sense of his motivation outside of not starving or freezing to death. This might be fine if Iannucci had lent some of his penchant for political satire to the narrative but Copperfield lacks bite in this regard as well. I’m not asking for the savagery of In the Loop (2009) or The Death of Stalin (2017), but the Dickensian themes of the film’s source material are screaming for an update under Iannucci’s clever, often derisive eye. Sadly, this is another missed opportunity.
There are kudos to be given, however, especially in the casting, set design, and costuming departments. Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie ham up their scenes nicely, as does Peter Capaldi, and Ben Whishaw’s Uriah Heep is as dastardly as ever. The unquestioned ethnicity of much of the cast is refreshing, and an example of where I’d like to see the industry go, but these long-overdue updates aren’t enough to save what is a frustratingly flat two hours. Personally, I wanted much more from this new version of a well-told tale, as I believe, even at 170-years-old, it’s a story that still holds significant value.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.