Nicholas Nickleby (DVD)

...up making dresses, and sends Nicholas to the darkness of Yorkshire, and Dotheboys Hall.

This is a dingy school much as you would expect from Dickens. it's run by two grotesques, the male with a crippled eye, the woman with a crippled spirit and malicious behaviour, and the two with an inexplicable love for each other. All the manual work is done by Smike, a lame and by now broken-hearted boy who arrived at the school, and who, once ...
...do the labour.

Nick Nick is very unhappy to be away from what he sees as his obligations, protecting his womenfolk and keeping a safe roof over all three of their heads. Horrified at the brutality of the routine at the school, he first forms a strong friendship with Smike, then runs away with him.

Meanwhile old evil uncle is virtually prostituting the Nickleby girl, as he uses her as a sop for investors, especially ... more

At last, a film review where theediscerning doesn't have to spend many paragraphs on the plot. (Instead he has to apologise for his title...) For we've all read Nick Nick, haven't we? We all know all about the characters, plot contrivances and coincidences etc...? We don't? Well this Hollywood version is (shock horror) a really good place to either play sunday afternoon tele self-indulgence, or to catch up.

The senior Nicholas, from his Devonshire house, is losing all his hard-earned money. So he decides to speculate in investing, just as his rich brother has done in the big smoke of london. However, this only means he loses more ~ everything, no less, including his life. This leaves his widow, the titular hero and pretty daughter, who can't even sell the hovel they live in. And so they descend on the city to gain aid from said brother.

Who, of course, is a bit of a rum 'un. He lives in darkened chambers, surrounded by skeletal exhibits and stuffed birds, running his retainer to drink, and being a hard-handed investor. Wishing only to rid himself of his kin ~ and showing no sympathy for the loss of his brother ~ he sets the females up making dresses, and sends Nicholas to the darkness of Yorkshire, and Dotheboys Hall.

This is a dingy school much as you would expect from Dickens. it's run by two grotesques, the male with a crippled eye, the woman with a crippled spirit and malicious behaviour, and the two with an inexplicable love for each other. All the manual work is done by Smike, a lame and by now broken-hearted boy who arrived at the school, and who, once his funds ran dry, was forced to stop learning and do the labour.

Nick Nick is very unhappy to be away from what he sees as his obligations, protecting his womenfolk and keeping a safe roof over all three of their heads. Horrified at the brutality of the routine at the school, he first forms a strong friendship with Smike, then runs away with him.

Meanwhile old evil uncle is virtually prostituting the Nickleby girl, as he uses her as a sop for investors, especially one loathsome lech. It becomes clear to us, if not the distant hero, that all three were used to curry or fulfil favours.

With amusing diversions along the way in the world of theatre, Nick Nick arrives back in London, and is able to live out what Dickens made hundreds of pages out of ~ the aforementioned coincidences and plot machinations that mean he must struggle to bring his uncle down as revenge.

To repeat, this is an excellent way to capture all that melodrama and turgid description that Dickens did so well. To theediscerning's literary tastes, a summary as done on screen (or stage) is "a far far better thing" than having to sit and plod through the dense, classic text.

And here the brightness and humour that is all too missable when you're reading Chapter XCVII, and the description of another squalor, interior, night, is to the fore. Douglas McGrath has adapted Nick Nick and directed it in a very fresh way, and although some bits are a tad slow, there is really nothing wrong with the whole thing. The look is all sumptuous, and to modern eyes, very correct, from silly hair down. And the acting, whatever the age and experience of the cast member, is most worthy of praise.

The unheard-of Charlie Hunnam, from Queer as Folk, leads as Nicholas. While we at first don't see the appeal of his haughty high and mightiness as he tries to stick up for himself and his family ~ his unconventional looks and silly hair don't help ~ he soon becomes suitably winsome and appealing.

His evil uncle is possibly the best performance, Christopher Plummer here showing a fine turn as a staid man, perfectly in control of his malevolence. True, his downfall may on looking back seem a little rushed, but that is not his fault ~ it's Dickens' contrivances at work. His consort in crime, to a point, is Edward Fox as the awful lech who is nearly given two helpless lasses' hands in marriage ~ never has his rich, plummy voice shown such undiscerning amorality.

The other main male is Jim Broadbent as Wackford Squeers (it's not Dickens without stupid names, don't'cha know), the head of the evil boys' institute. His burnt-out(?) eye is at times not the most convincing prosthetic, but his performance and look are just right for the part. Without such source material he and his wife Juliet Stevenson would be OTT caricature, but they're fine here.

But the big names don't stop there. Jamie "Billy Elliot" Bell is Smike, and is great, too. Semioticians (urgh!) would have a field day on his almost homosexual love for Nick Nick ("you are my home", he says at one point) but it all is endearing, and it is easy to see how our like for him could have been turned to mawkishness with forced sympathies.

And is there room for Tom Courtenay, or Nathan Lane as narrator and main theatrical dandy? Or Alan Cumming as one of the troupe ~ or even Barry Humphreys as the excellent Mrs Crummles? Or Sophie Thompson? Stella Gonet? The up-and-coming Romola Garai? Timothy Spall?! It really does have "everybody" in it, and they all put on a sterling performance. It's not just a replication of safe BBC TV drama, however, it really stands out as probably a definitive version ~ and the best to memory of many such dramatisations. There's drama in the unfolding of the plot strands, to their inevitable conclusions. There's humour in just the right amount, from the love talk of the Squeers' to the seemingly failed Highland Fling attempts (don't ask, just watch it and find out).

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  Our American readers can stop here. For while the UK version of this film is 2 hours 10, the North American one is not even 100 minutes. They obviously don't have the patience to experience the full story, so presumably are site hopping as the rest of us read this.
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It must have been a PG (theediscerning is still getting used to those modern-look BBFC certificates ~ aren't they awful?), but there is little to take offence ~ no bad language, no real violence (bar the odd whipping). Imdb does warn of the child-birth scene, but we can live with that, can't we? It will seem too long to the younger viewers, however. The cinematography is fine, and while there is none of the grandeur of swooping long shots or dramatic, full-on, large set-piece takes, it all seems right and proper. The music, thanks to Rachel Portman, is probably bound for more than one major award nomination. Again, there's no ear-catching set piece theme, but it's fine and dandy.

It all seems, then, a bit churlish to give the film four stars, but if you all read it as four and a half, then the job is done. It does take perhaps a little too much time to drop the narration and get into the main plot drive, and even then we aren't too sure we like our hero (or trust the help when it first arrives from Uncle's butler). Also, despite the jibe at the Bowlderisation for the Yanks, some of it does drag, and there is a point near the end that those with no knowledge of the plot can still realise how many scenes there are to come ~ "right, he needs to have this happen, and then they will get together, and all will be right with the world."

And you'll be right to think that, but will still have forgotten the highland fling.

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(PS This is nowhere near the Top Ten in the cinemas, as it came out months ago, and is more likely to be on DVD within a week or 3. But thanks to whoever put the film up in a paying category, and sorry for any thunder that's been stolen...) 

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