Just perfect...

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I love this movie. I've seen it multiple times and each time it's bettter. All the actors did a fantastic job. A must see.

Nicholas Nickleby (Hunnam) hatches a scheme to rescue a crippled young boy from virtual slavery and asks his friend Noggs (Courtenay) what he thinks of it. "May I say, it is foolhardy, redolent of danger, and doomed to fail. Aside from that I can think of no objection." I know, I know. It's an antique fiddling with rhetoric. It was probably old when Dickens deployed it.But there are several other comic moments that lift this dark story out of the gloom that threatens to envelop it. A terrified boy named Smike (Bell) is about to appear on stage for the first time, playing the apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet" before a formal audience. Hunnam as Romeo is alone on the stage. Then he shouts, "What, ho! Apothecary!" and waits for Bell to appear A moment passes. Several moments pass. The audience sits politely -- waiting. Finally Bell comes crashing out onto the stage as if thrown from the wings, which he probably was. Unable to speak, he gawks into the silent theater. More moment pass. Dynasties rise and fall, until he tentatively croaks, "Who calls so loud?" And the audience bursts into applause for him, having finally gotten the line out! I said the story was dark and except for a few brief moments, most of them involving Hunnam's involvement with the actors, it is dark. As is usual with Dickens, there are several deaths, the threat of an unwise marriage, poverty and violence, the gain or loss of fortunes. I won't get into all the sub plots.The production values are extremely good. Scenes of drear and misery alternate with idyllic shots of green meadows and Mattise ponds laced with lily pads. Make up and wardrobe are unimpeachable.The performances are all professional but two stand out. Christopher Plummer is the rich, mean uncle who exploits everyone and is possessed by spite. His conversion to humanity is a little abrupt but it's not Plummer's fault. He's hugely enjoyable. The other is Tom Courtenay, almost unrecognizable as Plummer's bibulous butler.It joins David Lean's "Oliver Twist" and the 1951 version of "Christmas Carol" as the best adaptations of any Dickens novel.

This movie is NOT an adaptation of the book. The only things this movie have in common with the book is the title and the character names.The movie is a reinterpretation of the book. The story taken from the book put together a sentimental and trite plot that would not give a proper idea of Dickens' original story. The physical scenery does not give a true sense of Victorian England. It is beautifully done, but London at that time was incredibly dirty. Even a rich man's house was small and cramped not the sumptuous abode in the movie. It is annoying to have blond-haired actor that looks so out of place among these darker colored actors and actresses. He and family look like Scandinavian transplants instead of English natives. I do acknowledge that it is difficult to translate Dickens's work to screen because the books are so rich in characters and plots. This time creators of this movie did not make the slightest attempt to do so. They just made up their own story and created their own version of sentimental slop and sprinkled a little Dickens for flavoring. What comes out is something good to look at but tastes bland and horrible.

This is not one of my favourite Dickens stories but any Dickens is worth pursuing. So I'm marking this against other Dickens productions too.The older actors are all outstanding. You mightn't think Barry Humphries could make a convincing "wife" in a "serious film" but he certainly does and I think Dickens, a fine actor himself, would have loved this performance.I was a little disappointed by some of the younger actors - they aren't quite up to the standard of their elders although they make a reasonable go of it. Perhaps the problem is partly that they had such a formidable cast of older actors to live up to. For Nicholas I would have preferred to see the acting depth of say Steven Mackintosh who gave such a brilliant performance as the hero John in Our Mutual Friend - which version is also one of my most favourite Dickens dramatisations, the other being the incomparable Tale of Two Cities with Dirk Bogarde.Nicholas is a feisty young man who stands up for himself and reasons out how to proceed and gains results. He isn't much a victim of events. The actor wasn't quite dynamic enough for the achievements the character manages. There wasn't enough on his love life either - that was settled just too briefly and easily. Oh, there you were, I knew, now let's get married. Not much more than that! Of all the actors, Christopher Plummer stood out for me as Ralph Nickelby. What a superlative actor he is! And also James Fox as the horrible predatory lecher - full of menace. I felt the girl who was to be forced to marry him escaped the net much too easily. We needed more tension, more fear, more horror but it seemed Nicholas walked in, told off Fox and Ralph and she said "I thought it was the best thing to do, to get my father's debt cancelled, but OK I won't worry about that now," and out she strolled with Nicholas, leaving the villains staring after them - and there was no comeback.I felt the denouement happened rather suddenly - I needed more time to see the evidence being gathered against Ralph and Plummer wasn't given quite enough time to deal with all the final revelations and most particularly the discovery that his son had lived but also had been badly treated for years and recently had died. We needed more about his background that is now revealed, and just what swindling he'd been up to - in more detail that is.These flaws are partly due to the usual length and complexity of Dickens' plots but there are shorter adaptations of Dickens that work well. All in all, there wasn't enough tension around the hero. Things went far too easily for Nicholas. I compare this quite light Dickens film to the grindingly grim and exciting tension of some notable Dickens' adaptations I've particularly liked - Our Mutual Friend, David Copperfield, Tale of Two Cities,Little Dorritt 2 versions, Bleak House 2 versions. Nickleby misses somewhat - because of the scripting.That said, it's hard to fail with a Dickens adaptation and I commend this as well worth seeing once though I doubt twice.