Film Review of Nicholas Nickleby
Year: 2002 Reviewer: Chris Docker
This is not the ideal family film - young children will be running up and down the aisles playing with the empty popcorn cartons before it gets even half way through (it's about two and a quarter hours long even before you count the ads). But for slightly more mature kids it has a good 'classics' feel to it. I haven't read the original Dickens so I don't know how much the story has been condensed or re-hashed, but the flavour was very Dickensian and the acting superb. There is some wonderful character building and cameos, including Christopher Plummer, Tom Courtenay, Jim Broadbent, Jamie Bell, and Timothy Spall (who plays a genteel character in pleasant contrast to his more usual panoply of rough-hewn, unshaven ignobles). But the main reason I enjoyed this film so much more than I expected is the crisp and vibrant pacing that rescues a story that in many hands would have been a dry and colourless rendering (euphemistically often known as a 'faithful adaptation'). It has quality without being overly sophisticated (all the main players, for instance, are either 'good' or bad') and the fine costumes and glorious English landscapes add to the overall appeal. Several complex stories are unravelled through the struggles of several generations of Nickleby and through true love, good versus evil, wealth and its loss - there is a harsh boarding school, a travelling theatre, and many more tales, all intertwined in a suspenseful way that is a credit to the spirit of Charles Dickens if not a substitute for the written word.
Rating: 8/10
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