The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)

Armando Iannucci approaches the Dickens novel as a man approaches a listed building he intends to repaint. The structure stays. The palette is his own. Dev Patel plays David Copperfield, an orphan of 1840s England, and the ensemble around him fills out with Benedict Wong, Rosalind Eleazar, and a company that looks nothing like the demographic records of Victorian Britain. This is the film's central gesture, deliberate and advertised, a reimagining of who gets to stand in the drawing room. The narrative never pauses to discuss it. Race is not a subject here. It is a casting decision, and the film trusts us to move on.

Whatever social observation the picture carries arrives by inheritance from the source. Murdstone runs his callous factory. The Micawbers are forever pursued by creditors and land, eventually, in debtors' prison. Dickens put that in the book, and Iannucci keeps it, delivered through whimsy and quick comic timing instead of a raised finger. Mr. Dick, who believes he carries the late King Charles I's thoughts, receives a warm and dignified portrayal, a sympathetic rendering of mental difference in period clothing. Betsey Trotwood and Agnes hold their ground as self-possessed women, though the film offers no gendered thesis to accompany them. They are defined by their proximity to David.

The result is a brisk, affectionate adaptation that wears its cultural awareness lightly and never stops to lecture. Iannucci's instincts are comedic, and the social critique he smuggles in is Dickensian furniture, not a modern polemic. The film has charm, colour, and good humour to spare. Nothing here preaches. That may be the quietest thing about it, and also the most welcome.