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How well you take to writer/director Douglas McGrath's adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby depends on whether you can accept Charles Dickens' melodramatic conceits as they are written. I wasn't looking forward to the exercise, having been sentenced to the anthologized offerings of Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities long ago during high school, spoon fed as if they were extra servings of gruel from Oliver Twist. Images of dry, straight-forward PBS re-tellings came to mind, since no one has successfully filmed a satisfying Dickens novel since David Lean's beautiful black and white versions of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist over fifty years ago.
It only seems fitting that Dickens be filmed in black and white since his moralistic tales are told only in those two shades; however, the modern age demands full color treatment while longing for simpler days of virtuous family values when good and evil can be discerned without ambiguity. To pull off such a feat without being the laughing stock of film buffs seems beyond hope, yet McGrath achieves the impossible task with a smile and a wink. A most brilliant touch begins the opening credits with a colorful and completely fake puppet stage with cardboard characters that cues us from the very beginning that we'll be watching a very staged and artificial performance and that the director knows this.
So what does it matter that Charlie Hunnam's portrayal of the pure-hearted Nicholas Nickleby, Jamie Bell's turn as the pitiful Smike, or Christopher Plummer's evil uncle Ralph Nickleby all never fully come to life—they only exist as stereotypical ideals in Dickens' text as well. McGrath remains true to its spirit while fully decorating the set and characters in the period, incorporating the endearing Dickens' wit that so often is overlooked, and focussing his rambling novel on the central theme of family and loss:
"What happens if too early we lose a parent—that party on whom we rely...for everything?
We are cut loose again, and we wander, even dread...whose hands will catch us now."
Young Nicholas and family live comfortably in the idyllic English countryside until his father dies, leaving them penniless. They seek out their wealthy uncle in London, only to be rebuked, split apart, and exploited. Nicholas heads off to work as a school teacher under the supervision of the one-eyed Wackford Squeers (wonderfully played by Jim Broadbent), a man whose every reaction to his young charges seems to involve cane whacking. His wife (Juliet Stevenson) is even scarier—always dressed in black to match her mood, she shows not an ounce of compassionate humanity, though if you examine her craggy face closely, you can discern a trace of lustful wishes when she threatens to "destroy the beauty" of the bare torsoed Nicholas.
Some audience members would also like to bring Nicholas down a tad as well; he's simply too good to be true. But bash Charles Dickens for that—he's not known for subtlety or for creating well-rounded characters. And Nicholas is as pure as Oliver Twist and as heroic as Charles Darnay throughout. Showing righteous anger appropriately is relatively easy for an actor, but simultaneously capturing achingly pure sensitivity without over-sentimentalizing requires a real challenge. It's hard to like a perfect person, yet Nicholas remains naturally likeable. Casting young Hunnam, who first gained wider notice in the original Queer as Folk series, is a brilliant stroke, considering the film's gay subtext—remaining true to its Victorian period and to Dickens all sexual matters are appropriately repressed, though theater director Vincent Crummle's (Nathan Lane) drag queen wife is rather blatant. These unspoken matters will give theatergoers something to discuss afterwards, since Dickens' morality play is so cut and dried itself.
Other pleasures include some wonderful ensemble acting and a great deal of humor. The always-welcome sight of character actor Timothy Spall as one of an Alice in Wonderland-like "Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee" pair of business partners is just one of many delights, and even those indiscriminant whacks from schoolmaster Squeers invoke giggles at times, as do over-the-top wall graffiti: "Fear Him Who Has Formed Thy Frame." Crummle's acting troupe brings a lightness to the dreary surroundings in many ways, and his insistence on casting Smike as the apothecary to acquire Nicholas as young Romeo supplies memorable moments and reminds us once more that we are not watching reality.
The play's the thing, whether it be Shakespeare or a Charles Dickens adaptation, where weird coincidences always turn the tide in his perpetual battles of good vs. evil, and we will be left with a moral lesson to end the melodrama. We know the eventual result before it starts (even without reading the source material), but Douglas McGrath so faithfully and artfully adapts Nicholas Nickleby that even a few cynics may be taken for a pleasurable ride this time. It's been many years since Dickens was this much cinematic fun!
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