Film Review: The Personal History Of David Copperfield

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD
Directed by Armando Iannucci
Screenplay by Simon Black

The film brings a new twist on the story of David Copperfield



So excited to sit in a movie theater again!! Plus...the smell of popcorn and odd that the theater smelled like cleanser. Which makes me wonder, if its the first time I smelled cleanser in a movie theater, were they ever really cleaned?
I digress, I am back in a theater and that is all that matters and I saw a double bill, starting with this David Copperfield mess of a film. UGH...I waited so long to get in a theater and this happened.

Positives:
Dev Patel never gives a bad performance and here, again, he is great, but often you can see him fighting the script and tone. There are points where you can literally see the fight in his face. You wonder at what point during filming he thought, this is not good.
Another positive is 2 wonderful performances by Hugh Laurie as the wonderfully "OFF" Mr Dick; and Tilda Swinton as Aunt Betsey Townsend. They are pretty funny together with Tilda playing the straight woman to Hugh.

Negatives:
Alas' even with those three wonderful performances they could not save this version of the Charles Dickens classic.
Director Armando Ianucci, who was a writer for Veep, tried to bring that Veep dry quick humor to this classic and just failed. I only laughed when Laurie and Swinton were on the screen and they were not on the screen enough to save this awful movie. The editing was a mess. I mean, I get involved with one of the story lines then it jumps a couple times, then moves in time quick, then forgetting that story-line. The film is all over the place.
 It runs a boring 2 hours and the story could have been cut by 30 minutes. I really hoped the script by Simon Black would recover over and over again, but it is a mess of tone and unlikable people.

Then throw in political correctness. A film with political correctness getting in the way of a story at a time when there was no political correctness and you go...."aaaah no". It takes your mind away from the story, because you keep thinking that is not right. I will just leave it at that, but I will say it worries me about the making of films going forward.

Well 8 people were in my screening, and only me and another person survived.....

1 1/2 stars out of 5 for The Personal History Of David Copperfield, and the 1 1/2 is for the 3 main actors. Even if you wait for home viewing I imagine you will fall asleep by the half way mark.

Back In The Shadows!! Thanks for your time!!!