Everyone excels in Dickens’ ‘Nickleby’; forget ‘Confessions’

‘Nickleby’ full of the Dickens spirit

Many years back, I remember when the Royal Shakespeare Co.’s

eight-hour production of “Nicholas Nickleby” was the hottest ticket

in town. The play featured about 100 characters and numerous plots

and subplots.

The latest film adaptation of this classic Charles Dickens novel

has been pared down to just over two delightful hours without

sacrificing the essence of the story or its charm, thanks to the

direction and screenplay adaptation of Douglas McGrath (“Emma”).

McGrath, who also wrote the hilarious “Bullets Over Broadway,” has

a flair for gathering a top-notch ensemble of actors and gives us a

memorable portrait of each of Dickens’ characters, who are either

very, very good or very, very bad. There is no gray area here.

Having recently lost his father, Nicholas Nickleby (Charlie

Hunnam), with his mother and sister Kate (Romola Garai), finds

himself destitute and forced to ask his father’s brother, the wealthy

Ralph Nickleby, for help.

Ralph (a wonderful Christopher Plummer) is as greedy and

mean-spirited a man as you could ever imagine, putting even Ebenezer

Scrooge to shame. He believes poverty to be a character flaw and the

poor barely deserving of his contempt.

Rather than take his desperate relatives under his wing, he farms

his brother’s widow out to board with strangers and Nicholas to work

in a wretched school for boys. However, he has other plans for his

pretty niece Kate and allows her to reside with him.

Dotheboys Hall -- more prison than boys’ school -- is almost

comical in its exaggerated squalor, making the orphanage in “Oliver

Twist” seem like a Holiday Inn by comparison.

Nicholas is outraged at the treatment the boys receive at the

hands of the one-eyed headmaster, Wackford Squeers (Jim Broadbent),

and his wife (Juliet Stevenson), who liberally doses the boys with

brimstone and treacle so they won’t have to give them real food.

Nicolas befriends the much-abused, crippled Smike (Jamie Bell of

“Billy Elliott”) and eventually they escape from the Squeers’

cruelty.

As they wander the countryside, they encounter the kind-hearted

Crummles (a great Nathan Lane and Barry Humphries), who take them

into their theatrical troupe. They also find unexpected allies in

Ralph’s tippling, disgruntled clerk, Noggs (Tom Courtenay), and a

host of other eccentrics.

The cast is extraordinary, the acting is terrific, and the

filmmakers have taken great care to treat Dickens’ work earnestly and

without going into caricatures. It’s well-told, literate movie with a

happy ending.

Please, sir, may I have some more?

* SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant

for a financial services company.

No absolution for slow ‘Confessions’

Television was in its infancy. Chuck Barris was trying to find a

place of honor and recognition.

Audience participation game shows were very deceitful. Just when

you thought you knew the game, the rules were changed. Prime-time

shows changed rapidly.

The disappointment caused by this instability plunged Barris into

mental imbalance, we learn in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” as

directed by George Clooney.

Once we learn of his family influences during childhood, it

becomes increasingly evident he was driven by demons unseen by

anyone.

Sam Rockwell stars as Barris. Drew Barrymore gives her usual star

performances as the wronged girlfriend, and Clooney brings in Julia

Roberts, who really didn’t have anything to do.

There wasn’t a lot to like in the movie. The story moves at a

snail’s pace, the language was offensive, and the scenes of casual

sex were boring.

I could not recommend the movie.

* ELAINE ENGLAND lives in Newport Beach and owns a gift-basket

business she operates out of her home.