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Nicholas Nickleby Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 28 Reviews)

Virtue - and audiences - rewarded
Despite being overlooked on release, Douglas McGrath's wonderful 2002 version of Dickens' tale of good rewarded captures both the feel and the sound of Dickens remarkably well. This world is indeed lived in, and the characters are vividly realised. The underplayed theatricality of Nathan Lane's opening and closing narration, allied to a strong sense of the cinematic sets the perfect tone right from the start, and its reprise at the ending is almost a well-deserved bow from the filmmakers.

It's even good enough to overcome the void at its center that is Charlie Hunnam, clearly cast for his looks since acting isn't a strong point. Indeed, it's bizarre that in a film with so many Americans, Canadians and Australians in its cast, the most unconvincing accent comes from a Brit, but Geordie Hunnam's curiously Scouse accent sticks out like a sore thumb, not only at odds with the rest of his family but also making him sound like a bored Beatle throughout - a kind of benign George Harrison without the `tache or the personality.

Thankfully his blandness is more than compensated for by some excellent work by Christopher Plummer's villainous uncle, avoiding the usual caricature the role inspires, and Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson and Heather Goldenhersch (boasting such a perfect English accent I was surprised to find she was American) as the hideous Squeers family, embracing it and pulling it off magnificently, while Nathan Lane and Dame Edna Everidge are truly inspired casting as the open-hearted but financially challenged theatricals Mr and Mrs Crummles. There's fine work from Timothy Spall, Tom Courtenay, Phil Davis and, most surprising of all, even Edward Fox as well. It doesn't avoid the sentimentality but manages to turn it into genuine emotion, not least because no-one falls into the trap of wildly overplaying - even Dame Edna.

All in all an unexpectedly delightful, genuinely likeable, sincerely heartwarming film that deserved more success than it found - but as Mrs Crummles notes, in the great struggle between "those aged combatants art and commerce... art, it would appear from the receipts, is in its usual position of jeopardy."


Cute but
A cute hero doesn't carry this day. From the beginning, you know noharm will befall him. There just is no tension. Fine actors never grabbed me.

Beautifully Done
This movie was a very fast paced one, with many twists and turns that kind of catch you off guard. Since there is so much action to try and fit into a feature length film, it's a wonder the directors got as much into the film as they did from the original book by Charles Dickens. I felt the movie was beautifully acted and well deserving of praise. Though this was not the first interpretation of the book (others being produced as early as 1977), it is a more approachable version, being as it does have more recognizable actors portraying the characters

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