It feels crazy for me to say that an adaptation of David Copperfield by Armando Iannucci is one of my favorite films of the year, but I loved this movie. It's so much fun. Dev Patel is so wonderful, and his joy is infectious. This is also gorgeously styled, so that the entire thing unfolds like a storybook. Some of the transitions actually took my breath away they're so clever and beautiful. It's also very, very funny, and the adaptation is very strong, mercifully avoiding the entire marriage between David and Dora as well as reducing the role of Uriah Heep (also a mercy).
This David Copperfield isn't perfect: Tilda Swinton is no Edna May Oliver, and at times the usual Dickensian threads come to seem outlandish, but even this is dealt with by Iannucci in a clever way.
I am comparing this film, by the way, to George Cukor's 1935 The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger, which I first watched about six months ago in anticipation of the 2020 adaptation. One intriguing point of comparison is that the star of the 1935 film is Freddie Bartholomew, who was about ten years old when the film was made, so that movie skews in a cutesy, childlike direction, and David's growth is delayed so the actor can keep playing the part. The 2020 adaptation is trying very hard to get us to Dev Patel as quickly as possible, so his time at school takes up a great deal more space. But this new film also has an excellent child actor in Ranveer Jaiswal, and Iannucci uses him beautifully, and his return at the film's end was perfect.
Either way, I had a blast watching this adaptation and really loved it.
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