The Personal History of David Copperfield review, Culture Whisper (LFF)
It’s a daunting task for Armando Iannucci, best known for making dark political satires like The Thick of It and The Death of Stalin, to compress Charles Dickens’s 900-page magnum opus David Copperfield into a concise couple of hours. A miniseries might have been more appropriate.
But even though Iannucci and co-writer Simon Blackwell cut and speed through the source material, they employ a rich and dreamy and energetic style that invigorates like any great chapter from a Dickens novel.
The Personal History of David Copperfield starts and continues with a theatrical flair, beginning at the end as a grown-up David Copperfield — played by a continually charming Dev Patel — orates his masterwork in front of an audience. The wall behind him gives way to a cinematic rush through a rural countryside, walking into the hours before his birth.
