Female Film Critics 24/375
Intrigued by the title? I was too, particularly since 2020 marks the 150th year since the death of Charles Dickens, but it’s certainly not the semi-autobiographical tale that I remember. Scottish director Armando Iannucci’s revisionist version begins in 1850 in a London theater, where David Copperfield (Dev Patel) addresses the audience, speculating on whether he’ll turn out to be the hero of his own life.
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The ever-versatile Oscar nominee Dev Patel leads a terrifically talented troupe selected through colorblind or nontraditional casting, a practice still more common in modern-day theater than filmmaking. It’s refreshingly lovely to see outstanding actors of color like Patel, Benedict Wong and Nikki Amuka-Bird bring the classic novel’s characters to life.
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Director Iannucci and writer Simon Blackwell are known for cursing and biting satire. Here, however, they lean on Dickens. Cramming a beloved, 800-pp. novel into a 2-hour film does not work totally. The cast may have had fun exercising, but the audience will be left longing for a few of Iannucci’s signature F-bombs to spice up this interpretation.
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