Dreadful silly colourblind casting adaptation of Dicken's great autobiographical novel
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by PV
Colourblind casting is awful - and deeply selective of course as you do not see white actors casting ins 'African/Asian' stories playing Nelson Mandela or Asian heroes. Of course 'authentic casting' is demanded for ANY non-white role. Pure hypocrisy then.
David Copperfield was the autobiographical novel of Charles Dickens who was not, as far as I am aware, Asian/Indian.
SO that makes it all nonsense in my opinion. I avoid all colourblind casting movies now. I have NO objection to African or Asian or black stories having no white actors - like Moonlight (not one white face in that film, but that is how it is in some US cities and schools). Fine, The respect needs to be applied the other way too, to the 'white' British stories (a fact: when WWII started there were only 6000 black people in the UK. Just 6000. A tiny number of Asians. So please do not claim more).
BE AUTHENTIC in casting. Respect the author and the story.
AND Ianucci is an unfunny and over-rated writer and director too. Pleases the critics. Not the public. Just not as talented as he thinks he is or as metropolitan woke London movie critics.
No stars. Watch OLD versions of Dickens to avoid this depressing racist mind virus of woke. DAVID LEAN'S Great adaptations. Watch all the old films, not modern pc cololurblind casting tickbox adaptations. Oliver Twist, Great Expectation from late 1940s are all kids need to watch. Not this woke dross.
9 out of 29 members found this review helpful.
Really disappointing
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by AL
Maybe if you know the story already it helps. We started watching and really had no idea what was going on. Things moved so fast between scenes with strange relatives and, whoever popping up saying something strange very quickly and leaving. Thank god the DVD seemed to stop half way through, maybe it got fed up as well as us. Tried to watch it with my family as was a PG and marked as being a comedy. I thought if it was a comedy it was supposed to be even remotely amusing.
8 out of 10 members found this review helpful.
Staged and silly
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by BE
This film was like a set of little stories strung together, it didn’t flow well and had some particularly bad acting from the supporting actors. Peter Capaldi also looked very out if place as Mr Micawber. The presentation of so many ‘people of colour’ in various roles, belied the writing of Charles Dickens and the times he lived in. I can see director, Armando Iannucci, homed in on the humour of the story, as opposed to the serious side but it really didn’t work.
8 out of 13 members found this review helpful.
Condensed and tweaked
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by Pete W
An almost impossible task to cover David Copperfield in 2 hours, so I can see that shortcuts are needed. Parts of the film work, others clunk a bit. Dev Patel is good in the title role but Copperfield is not the main character in the book, he's the central point around which the other more eccentric characters revolve - seen in different ways (and called different names) by the other characters. Hugh Laurie is very touching as Mr Dick, Tilda Swinton a fearsome donkey bashing Betsy Trotwood. I couldn't decide whether I liked Ben Wishaw's creepy Uriah Heap but I really did not like Peter Capaldi as an accordion playing Mr Micawber. The denouement of the main plot and the unveiling of Heap's villainy is rushed. Why bother with the Yarmouth end of the story if you're going to completely change the outcome? A bit hit and miss.
5 out of 5 members found this review helpful.
What a load of twoddle
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by PT
Couldn't manage to waste my time watching it all. Think it was supposed to be funny but it didn't work for me.
4 out of 5 members found this review helpful.
Dickens would turn in his grave !
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by JD
If you want to watch a “woke” version of this much loved Charles Dickens classic, this is the movie for you.
If not , you will be shouting at the tv at this unfunny, confusing, strange version. The well known cast are wasted.
3 out of 4 members found this review helpful.
David Copperfield Personal History
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by DH
Cringe worthy. To see so many talented actors over-egging the parts was awful. At times it was so saccharine, the film made one's teeth hurt. There have been great versions of the Dickens masterpiece and this was definitely not one of them. Why add the racial dimensions to Dicken's very personal semi-autobiographical novel? For the sake of political correctness and inclusiveness? In fact, it subtracts and only makes for confusion. Why not put all the characters in wheel chairs or make Clara Peggotty, trans-gender. Truly awful. Watch the excellent earlier versions instead!
3 out of 5 members found this review helpful.
An Entertaining Romp through a much loved classic
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by Old Devonian
I agree with the final paragraphs by the reviewer ‘DS’. A TV Series in 6 one hour episodes would have allowed a more faithful rendition of the novel, but as Armando wanted to do a film he had to decide on style I guess. What you get is two hours of , mainly manic, fast moving storyline with modern editing against a background of pseudo CGI enhanced Dickensian Britain played by some great household names who put in very good performances. Particularly enjoyed Peter Capaldi as Mr Micawber. Some have commented on the diversity of the acting ensemble. Yes it was weird to square it away to begin with but that didn’t last long. I read that Armando wasn’t making any point, as others have mentioned, but he just thought ‘why not’ and select from 100 pc of the available acting talent.
It is an interesting casting issue and I, for one, salute Armando for going for it big time in this production.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Didn't work for me
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by CP Customer
Personally, I loved the 'colour-blind' casting and would like to see more in films. Having said that, I gave up on the film after only watching half; I know the story well but this version was - dare I say it - just boring. Emotionless and flat despite its stellar cast.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
It Would Magic If They Could Fit David Copperfield into Two Hours Running Time....see what I did.
- The Personal History of David Copperfield review by Strovey
Armando Iannucci and Simon Blackwell were always going to have a task at hand without worrying about what a few dyed-in-the-wool racists think about having a black actor playing a white actor’s mum and that task is the same as anyone who tries to commit well-loved Dickens novel to the cinema. It the fact that the length of a film cannot fit all the nuance and intricacies of most, if not all, of Dickens novels.
So we end up with quick cuts, exclusions and skimming from the original text, so as it ever was.
Iannucci is well known for his scalpel sharp wit and take on both modern and historical politics showing it up for all of its redundancy, pomp and ridiculousness but clearly the modern world and our glorious leaders have made his take on this redundant. So why not to Dickens who stories were equally scapel sharp, astute comments on Victorian Britain?
This take on David Copperfield flows with an eccentric oddball humour from the off and we are swept along with some speed through the title character’s trials and tribulations. Unfortunately this is at the expense of supporting characters so we only get thumbnail sketches of them and it depends on the skill of the actor whether you connect with the person on the screen. Due to some excellent casting and some great locations in general the film gets away with it.
Dev Patel is uniformly excellent in anything he puts his hand to and his kind-hearted and honest David Copperfield is no exception and luckily he is ably supported by Peter Capaldi as an unlikely Mr. Micawber, as optimistic as ever, and a myriad of experienced and talented actors from Hugh Laurie, in a role that seems to have been waiting for Hugh Laurie over the years, Tilda Swinton carrying on her quest to seemingly play only strange and eccentric people, and the aforementioned Rosalind Eleazar as Agnes who captured all attention as soon as he appeared on the screen for me. Ben Whishaw must be mentioned in dispatches as everyone’s favourtie slimey, hang-wringing Uriah Heep, black hat firmly in place but oddly just enough sympathy at the closing stages of the film.
The problem is not in the direction, writing, cinematography, sets or acting but rather the material and after enjoying and watching The Personal History of David Copperfield you feel as if some large part of it was left on the editing floor, it wasn’t it was simply this was story telling pared down to fit in with cinema running times and modern audiences.
As such the film did a good job and all those involved such proud and pleased with their efforts, Unfortunately though, and I say this with a heavy-heart being an admirer of Armando Innaunci, this film proved to me that David Copperfield would be best served with a high value production TV series with enough episodes to do the story justice.
Still fun enough for a Sunday afternoon viewing with all the family.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
