The Personal History Of David Copperfield Releases Next Week, What Are Dickens Fans Expecting?

The Personal History of David Copperfield will finally get its much-awaited theatrical release in India on December 11, and as an ardent Dickens fan, I absolutely cannot keep my calm. The film is directed by Armando Iannucci and stars Dev Patel as the title character. It also features Aneurin Barnard, Peter Capaldi, Morfydd Clark, Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton and Ben Whishaw in pivotal roles. And while this adaptation is the eighth live-action feature film of Dicken’s novel, it is the first to prominently feature actors of colour throughout the cast.

In fact, re-reading David Copperfield in a year that is replete with disasters, both figurative and literal, has made me ponder a lot on the fateful overlapping of the film’s release in the middle of a pandemic. The film was initially supposed to hit the big screens in the early months of 2020, but due to the lockdown imposed on theatres across the world, the release had to be postponed. Just like so many other plans that were turned upside down this year.

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Since the starting of this year, we’ve witnessed innumerable protests and riots, a huge migrant crisis, increasing unemployment rates, and terrible storms and floods hitting several parts of the country. Statistics suggest that over 1.7 million homeless people in India have been disproportionately affected during the pandemic, with million others on the verge of losing access to food and shelter. To the extent that they are not already, things are about to get Dickensian. So in such a context, how does one perceive Dicken’s autobiographical work? And more so, what is it that Dickens fans expecting from such a promising adaptation?

What Is David Copperfield All About?

The novel starts very quickly with David's birth and the travails of his childhood. It deals with the sufferings of young David after his mother’s death, and the cruel treatment meted out to him by his stepfather, schoolmasters, and employers. David’s life is changed by the people he meets as he grows up: they help him mature and learn from his many mistakes. The novel then, in many ways, is about reversals in the fortunes of a boy and then a young man, who is learning to tell his own story — much like Dickens himself.

The rags-to-riches plot is filled with glorious witticisms and adroit, complex caricatures: after all, the most memorable Dickensian villains like Uriah Heep and Mr Creakle are part of this very novel. In fact, such was the success of David Copperfield that many scholars agree that the novel was the true making of Charles Dickens as an artist. No wonder that it became, as remarked by Dickens himself, his “favourite child”.

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That Relatability Factor

The best part of David Copperfield, according to me, is the richness of its characters. Some of them are perfectly good, and some are perfectly bad, but many of them are neither, just perfectly depicted. With some exception, most of them are kind, but they are all inevitably crazy. Such characters, who are set against the raw despair of familiar mass poverty, are necessary reminders of our shared humanity at a time when circumstances seem to conspire against that particular generosity. For example, we have Betsy Trotwood, whom almost all readers initially hate for abandoning a young David. But she utterly redeems herself years later, coming to David when he is about to hit his lowest ebb, reminding one that people indeed are capable of miracles.

On the other hand, if anyone knows how tough life can be, it's our protagonist David. Born in tragic circumstances, victimised by his step-father, and then bullied at boarding school, the poor boy surely could have been forgiven for becoming a downtrodden failure. Instead, David draws on all his inner strength and refuses to be crushed. There is even a part where he walks all the way from London to Dover, which is more than a 100 kilometre, just to seek some help. A child trudging for miles to an uncertain fate, now that's what never giving up looks like. That, in addition to numerous thought-provoking quotes like “Procrastination is the thief of time: collar him”, makes David Copperfield one of the most inspiring novels to relate to in such dastardly times.

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What To Look Forward To In The Film

When asked about why he chose to make an adaptation of David Copperfield, Armando Iannucci replied, “I was reminded by how funny it was, but how also contemporary it felt in all the themes are about forming connections. Who do you love? Who are your friends? Who looks after you? Who helps you? Who do you help, irrespective of their backgrounds and their own stories and so on… After what's happened this year, maybe there is now a keener appetite for something like this.” If anything, Iannucci’s remark attests to the fact that he too is more interested in bringing to light the contemporary-ness of a story such as David Copperfield.

The trailer of The Personal History of David Copperfield opens with David on stage, commencing the recitation of his story before striding through a painted backdrop straight into the glowing English landscape of his childhood. This cinematic device itself looks surreal, and in fact, quite modernist, letting us believe what Patel’s David says at the end of the trailer: “This narrative is far more than mere fiction. It is, in fact, a memory.” We are introduced to a vast array of characters, cast with inclusivity that promises to broaden the scope of this adaptation far beyond the previous ones.

The trailer is also replete with slapstick comedy, one which seems to drag Dickens into Charlie Chapin territory. And seeing how profoundly gifted Iannucci is in directing ensemble comedy, it might be safe to say that the adaptation is in good hands (if you haven’t seen Iannucci’s 2017 burlesque film Death of Stalin, you surely ought to in order to get a taste of his feral directing capabilities). All that is left to see is how well this adaptation manages to strike a balance between being faithful to its source material and being modern in its vision, that too while carrying out the mammoth task of reducing a long, grand novel to a 120-minutes scale.

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Views expressed are the author’s own.