j* movie reviews 2020

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2020)

I should have done some research on this one - apparently this guy isn't a magician.

The rave reviews and funny trailer promised something that seemed a little like The Favourite and that was funny as. And the casting is quite spectacular, so what could go wrong? Well quite a few things really. First of all I thought this David Copperfield was a magician but apparently he's a writer, of sorts. And do you know what I usually find nearly as dull as lawyer films? That's right, writer films.

So there are a few gags that are truly funny but I found most of the humour fell a lot flatter than I thought it would. Mostly, as in real life, it was jokes that didn't work for the audience that I found funniest - I love a joke fail.

David Copperfield himself isn't very funny. For most of the film he's a quote collector and scribbles a range of funny sayings down on scraps of paper. He has some form of dyslexia, I guess, that makes him unable to read under stress for most of the film. But then once he finally sits down to write his troubles disappear. Well sort of, technically even while writing he has some meta-story-drama.

The film has done something I've been hearing described as "racially-blind casting" and it has a fairly diverse cast in that sense. And I'm all onboard a multi-racial cast even if it challenges history with possible anachronism. I'm also onboard for creative half-sibling designation and adoption and all that jazz. However, there felt like there were just a few too many parent-child relationships that seemed a bit biologically unlikely from a visual perspective. And I got a bit distracted trying to create workable backstories/bloodlines for those characters. Regardless, it was cool to see everyone in their fancy period dress.

Anyway, it's not about that 1980s magician, which I probably should have guessed from the dresses of the olden days. The story has too many bits all a swirly-whirling, much like the tail on Hugh Lawrie's kite.

I didn't get attached to anyone and whilst fanciful, I wouldn't say it was a bottler film.

J* give it 3 stars.