Nicholas Nickleby

After the sad death of his father, Nicholas Nickleby (Hunnam), his mother and his sister Kate (Garai) are forced to give up their family home and travel to London to ask his Uncle Ralph Nickleby (Plummer) for help. His uncle finds Nicholas a job at a boy's home in Yorkshire ran by Wackford Streep (Broadbent), who treated his students as badly as they bleak conditions they lived in but he befriends one of the boys can Smike (Bell) and tells them that life is better than this. As the conditions get worse, Nicholas and Smike run away and try and find jobs that will make them enough money to get the Nickleby's back in their family home.

An all-star cast bring Charles Dickens's classic novel to life on the silver screen.

There is one thing that can be counted on and that is that the British can do classic adaptations of period novels really well. This is one of Dickens's best loved novels and the outstanding cast give it their all to bring the essence of his material to the big screen.

There are standout performances from Christopher Plummer as the greedy, self-obsessed Ralph Nickleby and Jim Broadbent as the evil, boy's home headmaster with a passion for the cane Wackford Streep. In fact Broadbent's portrayal of the character proves again that he is one of the best British character actors working today. There is also great support from Alan Cumming, Edward Fox, Nathan Lane and a scene stealing performance by Tom Courtney as Newman Noggs.

The young cast are also very good. Jamie Bell returns to form as Smike and shows that all the hoopla about his debut wasn't unjustified after all. Romola Garai proves again that she is an actress to watch and Anne Hathaway does her best with a limited role.

There are two things that let the movie down however. The first is the story itself, which is faithful to the novel but seems to be full of too many Dickens's stereotypes and similar storylines to stand out from his other novels. Secondly is Charlie Hunnam, who seems out of his depth amongst such an exceptional cast.

These small points aside, there is still much to enjoy in this movie. Douglas McGrath does an excellent job of capturing the period and the feel of the Dickensian era beautifully and the cast is top notch but I hope that tall hats never come back in fashion.

Audio commentary with director Douglas McGrath, 'The Life Of Charles Dickens: A Mirror To His Work' documentary, 'Creating A Classic': a 'Making Of' featurette, 'The Cast On The Cast' featuring interviews, 'Views On The Set': a multi-angle feature on 5 key scenes, Behind the scenes, photo gallery, Theatrical trailer, Interactive menu & Scene access

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2003