Nicholas Nickleby

When his father dies, Nicholas is left dependent on a wealthy uncle along with his mother and sister. The uncle sends him north to teach at a boarding school. The school is in fact a store for unwanted children; the headmaster starves and beats them. Nicholas takes one boy and runs, and everything else is the consequence of that. The subject is not destitution but kinship guaranteeing nothing. The one adult related to Nicholas by blood is hostile to him; everyone who protects him is a stranger. The film presents family as something assembled by choice. The form runs at the speed of compressing a novel of two hundred people into two hours. Characters are introduced quickly, events follow one another and some people are summarised in a single scene. That is a loss for readers of the book and pace for everyone else. The best decision is the casting. Jim Broadbent plays the headmaster, Christopher Plummer the uncle and Nathan Lane the manager of a travelling theatre; the theatre section is the liveliest part and the closest to Dickens's humour. Douglas McGrath directs. Charlie Hunnam plays Nicholas and Anne Hathaway the woman he loves. Who it is for: viewers who like Dickens adaptations and classical-era drama. Who it is not for: anyone who knows the novel; the film cuts many strands and nearly erases some characters.