The Personal History of David Copperfield is a beautiful new take on a classic story

Consider, for a moment, the career of Armando Iannucci, noted Scottish satirist. He’s famous for whip-smart and ruthless political comedies like the acidic TV show Veep and the brutally comic films In The Loop and The Death of Stalin. His latest project, out this week to rent or buy on demand, is quite different from all that. Here’s the swerve: The Personal History of David Copperfield is a relatively straightforward adaptation of Charles Dickens’ most famous novel, David Copperfield. Unlike a lot of Iannucci’s most famous work, The Personal History of David Copperfield is a warm and loving story, a period drama that, like Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, is faithful to its source material yet modern in its vision. (It does retain...

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