Toronto Film Fest: Here's how Dev Patel's 'David Copperfield' makes Charles Dickens fun again

CLOSE

2019’s fall movie lineup ranges from horror (“It: Chapter Two”) to supervillains (“Joker”), and we can hardly wait.
USA TODAY

TORONTO – When Dev Patel was called about playing the Dickensian title character of “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” the Oscar-nominated “Lion” star totally had the wrong guy in mind.

“I was one of those dopey people who didn’t know who David Copperfield was. I thought he was the magician and went to this meeting very excited about sawing some people in half or whatever,” Patel joked Thursday night in a QA following the movie’s world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. “Personal History,” which co-stars Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton and Peter Capaldi, is slated to be released in theaters next year.

What writer/director Armando Iannucci (HBO’s “Veep”) does conjure is a delightful and proudly quirky adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel. As in the book, David (Patel) explains his various rises and falls from being a poor child to a noted writer in Victorian England. And along the way, there’s slapstick, puns and zingers, plus David’s love interest, the dim Dora (Morfydd Clark), often giving her dog Jip a goofy voice.

Iannucci acknowledged that “all the crazy stuff in the film that you think we made up” was actually in the book. For example, when David falls in love with Dora, he sees her name everywhere, and included on screen is a bit where David looks in the clouds and sees the shape of “Dora.” In one Dickens passage, all the clerks in the office have Jip’s head, another example that proved all the cinematic inspiration was on the page.

“Dickens was a really experimental writer,” said Iannucci, adding that other influences include “Barry Lyndon” to “avoid the conventions of costume drama” as well as “little bits” of Buster Keaton comedy routines.

“Armando has this amazing way of extracting comedy from every line,” added Patel, who considered playing Copperfield a “supreme honor.”

Laurie also loved his kite-carrying character Mr. Dick, a confidante of David’s eccentric, donkey-hating Betsey Trotwood (Swinton). “Mr. Dick is certainly a very early, if not the first, fictional representation of mental illness or what would have been called a derangement,” Laurie said.

“He’s certainly delusional at times, psychotic almost perhaps, and it’s something that causes him torment. There was great pain but also great joy in his relationship with David.”

Iannucci made a jab about the Dickens novel’s extreme length (“It’s like the first binge-reading; if you can sit and watch something for 13 hours, you can read 900 pages”) and also discussed putting aside the biting satire of “Veep” and his movie “The Death of Stalin” for a timely, more hopeful look at humanity with “Copperfield.”

“We’re all different and yet we’re all the same,” Iannucci said. “David spends three-quarters of the movie being paranoid about his background and he walls himself. It’s about engaging with people who may be different from us or express different opinions. It’s about making connections. If we don’t encourage that, then we’ll be (expletive). I’d like to un-(expletive) us.

“If any Democratic (presidential) candidates are looking for a slogan: ‘I will un-(expletive) you.’ “

Patel has just one wish, that “it’ll avoid another dopey guy like me not knowing who David Copperfield is, hopefully.”

Post to Facebook

Posted!

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

• 1 of 71
• 2 of 71
• 3 of 71
• 4 of 71
• 5 of 71
• 6 of 71
• 7 of 71
• 8 of 71
• 9 of 71
• 10 of 71
• 11 of 71
• 12 of 71
• 13 of 71
• 14 of 71
• 15 of 71
• 16 of 71
• 17 of 71
• 18 of 71
• 19 of 71
• 20 of 71
• 21 of 71
• 22 of 71
• 23 of 71
• 24 of 71
• 25 of 71
• 26 of 71
• 27 of 71
• 28 of 71
• 29 of 71
• 30 of 71
• 31 of 71
• 32 of 71
• 33 of 71
• 34 of 71
• 35 of 71
• 36 of 71
• 37 of 71
• 38 of 71
• 39 of 71
• 40 of 71
• 41 of 71
• 42 of 71
• 43 of 71
• 44 of 71
• 45 of 71
• 46 of 71
• 47 of 71
• 48 of 71
• 49 of 71
• 50 of 71
• 51 of 71
• 52 of 71
• 53 of 71
• 54 of 71
• 55 of 71
• 56 of 71
• 57 of 71
• 58 of 71
• 59 of 71
• 60 of 71
• 61 of 71
• 62 of 71
• 63 of 71
• 64 of 71
• 65 of 71
• 66 of 71
• 67 of 71
• 68 of 71
• 69 of 71
• 70 of 71
• 71 of 71

Last SlideNext Slide

Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~/606505550/0/usatodaycommovies-topstories~Toronto-Film-Fest-Hereaposs-how-Dev-Patelaposs-aposDavid-Copperfieldapos-makes-Charles-Dickens-fun-again/