Film - The Personal History of David Copperfield

The film opens in roaring technicolour, not something that can be often said when it comes to regaling any of Dicken’s tales. The young David Copperfield is enjoying his childhood thanks to his loving mother and adoring nanny. Life goes decidedly taupe when presumably for financial or possibly societal reasons his mother marries a monster. Once young David is sent to boarding school, AKA to be a child labourer the story starts to unfold.

Despite being at his lowest ebb David befriends others worse off (financially, rather than emotionally) but the film never really goes Dickens grey. It kind of stays with (Gap) neutrals and till the colourful good times roll. The colours represent the roller-coaster of a young life where the young man just wants to do good by his family his friends and himself whereas his evil-stepfather wants him out of the way.

I loved how Copperfield was portrayed expressing himself through scrawling on bits of paper still as an adult and how that writing was cleverly entwined in the telling of his personal history in this film.  The film reached it’s peak here and I was utterly enthralled by the constantly changing story lines

I can tell this film is made by a big fan of this story as detail has been poured into every scene. It tells multiple stories as each of the numerous characters are explored for a little bit of their back history and I enjoy learning about each one. Despite the despair, there is hope, mainly via Copperfield’s faith in humanity and never-ending search for a solutions. This is the sort of best friend everyone needs. Every actor cast appears made for their role and there are fair few of them from Hugh Lawrie to Tilda Swinton and especially Dev Patel in the lead. I can no longer imagine another face now when I think of David Copperfield. Genius.

8½/10 (bordering on 9/10 but too early to tell)