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.
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.