'The Personal History of David Copperfield' (PG)

*****

David Copperfield takes to the stage to recount his life and times, interspersed with the plethora of colourful characters he's met along the way.

It's clear that Armando Iannucci loves Dickens' Victorian behemoth David Copperfield, because only someone who loves the 800-page bildungsroman could have created a film that is at once wonderfully faithful and yet wholly creative with the source text. The film begins with our eponymous hero (the charming Dev Patel) taking the stage to recount his story, something that Dickens himself also did in wildly popular tours of Britain and the United States, and it feels like another respectful nod from Iannicci (who shares screenwriting credits with Simon Blackwell) to one of the most celebrated authors who ever lived. Throughout his film, Iannucci both pokes fun at Dickens ('why am I even this scene?') and celebrates his works, giving a new lease of life to a story that most of us would bypass in the book shop. 

First of all, we can't bypass the simply fantastic cast who bring Dickens' colourful creations to the screen: it's a creme de la creme of British acting talent, with the likes of Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie and Ben Whishaw acting as supports to the endlessly charming Dev Patel in the lead role, not to mention the delightful young actor Jairaj Varsani who plays Copperfield as a child.  Much has been made of the multi-cultural casting, and yet I confess to have barely noticed, instead being swept along in the story and the characters as opposed to their skin colours. Iannucci's decision to focus on the absurdist, comical nature of Dickens' works gives rise to a truly humorous script, which the cast clearly revel in, giving some of the finest comic performances in recent years. Peter Capaldi (as Copperfield's rather complicated associate Mr Micawber) excels in a role that fuses charm with tragedy, once again emphasising how badly let down he was by the poor writing during his tenure in Doctor Who. Anyway, I digress... In short, each character is bought to life as vividly as Dickens originally wrote them, with the intriguing personalities simply bursting off the screen.

It's not just the script that's excellent, but the direction too. Throughout the film, Iannucci plays with Dickens' powers as the omniscient narrator: for example, in one scene our characters are standing in a room as another describes a scenario, only for the Copperfield to find himself looking out upon the described moment as though he had been there. It's a clever conceit, and one that can also be seen in moments where snippets of film are played upon interior walls to fill in any blanks in the back story. Of course, condensing such a hefty novel into a compact run time does make some elements feel a little rushed, but such is the overall success of the film that such trifles can be overlooked. 

A charming, faithful-yet-original, old fashioned and somehow modern, The Personal History of David Copperfield feels something like a warm embrace. There are so many things that could do wrong when adapting a book of this nature, and yet there is rarely a misstep in the entire run time, resulting in a film that's simply a delight to behold. See it on a chilly January evening - it'll warm the cockles of your heart.