Nicholas Nickelby
Theatricality
There is quite a bit of Shakespeare in Nicholas Nickleby, which is all to the good. Shakespeare and Dickens are the pillars of our language. Their works may seem remote and dusty on first glance — the Battle of Agincourt and the madness of King Lear certainly seem about as far away to us today as do the streets of Dickens’s London — but there is a timeless quality there, too, one that stretches throughout the generations. And seeing Nicholas Nickleby pull off not one, but two scenes involving performances of Romeo and Juliet is a rare treat, like seeing Roger Clemens throw at Alex Rodriguez.
The focus on the theater, and theatricality in general, pays off hugely in the two-hour movie version of Nicholas Nickleby. (Yes, it’s two hours, and if you’d like to try paring a Dickens novel down to an hour and a half, be my guest.) Nicholas Nickleby is theatrical, through and through, even to the point of showcasing noted Broadway ham Nathan Lane. It’s got a huge, talented ensemble cast, letter-perfect costuming, and just the right note of Dickensian squalor; everything you’d want in a fun, frothy piece of theater.
Since the movie is really no more and no less than a fine piece of theater, recounting the plot here would just give you and me a headache. And it’s just one of those Dickens specials, with a young man finding his way in the world, although without all that disgusting stuff about the moldy old wedding cake. Let us confine ourselves, then, with a discussion of the players:
- Charlie Hunnam, as Nicholas Nickleby: Without ever seeing this young man act before, I will say here that I doubt that the lively art of hairstyling had quite gotten this far in the Dickensian era. Mr. Hunnam’s hair is big and blonde and wavy and does the signal job of distracting the audience from the fact that the person underneath cannot act his way out of a barber’s chair. Nicholas Nickleby is worth seeing for this one sight alone. His hair manages to convey the character’s goodness, integrity, and innocence all by itself. If Mr. Hunnam expects to have a long and successful acting career independent of his hairstylist, he had better take a cue from Brad Pitt (see Twelve Monkeys and Se7en) and try to minimize its impact. I mean, whoa.
- Christopher Plummer, Ralph Nickleby: It’s worth pointing out that Plummer has played Hamlet, and both Sherlock Holmes and Rudyard Kipling; adding on Dickens here means that he’s hit for the career cycle in adaptations of Great English Literature. Of course, Plummer’s career also hits for the cycle in not-so-great American literature; he’s been in adaptations of the classic works of Stephen King and Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steele, and Colleen McCullough. Not to mention starring in adaptations of Nabokov and Solzhenitsyn, just to cover all the bases. And he was in a Star Trek flick. Talk about range! He’s the villain here, and a crackling good one; vindictive, but in a subtle way. And he reminds us that not all Dickens villains are Scrooges, and redemption is possible, but not always likely. Good stuff, this, and might have been worthy of better notice if there hadn’t been other good performances out there.
- Jim Broadbent, Squeers: The sub-villain, but the showier role. Squeers is the headmaster of a boy’s school in Yorkshire that will forever put off any child who’s seen too many Harry Potter movies from the boarding school experience. Young Nickleby is shanghaied into serving as a teacher in this grim, sullen place, where children are not only starved and beaten, but made to learn Latin as well. But it’s great fun to see Broadbent, as always, and he has the meaty role of the hypocritical Squeers down absolutely pat. He’s greasy, slimy, holier-than-though, and a dab hand with the cane on the back of the defenseless. Broadbent already has his Oscar — a minor miracle, that, if you like — but it was earned, and earned for small, chewy roles like this one. Nicholas Nickleby is lucky to have him on board.
- Tom Courtenay, Newman Noggs: Courtenay is the butler here, the only other person in Plummer’s household, and as such is able to get away with a lot. He’s the comic relief here — and in a movie that borders on the self-serious, he’s more than welcome. But it is his character that carries much of the movie’s poignancy, and makes some of the biggest sacrifices. No small parts, only small actors.
- The Women: Outside of a small, vinegary performance by Juliet Stevenson (who had the classic “Get your lesbian feet out of my daughter’s shoes!” line in Bend It Like Beckham), not much to see here. And that’s too bad. Both Romola Garai and Anne Hathaway are little more or less than window-dressed symbols of Victorian respectability; the fact that they are well-dressed, and pleasant, and inoffensive does little to make them memorable.
- Jamie Bell, Smike: This is the young actor who starred in the memorable Billy Elliot, although he’s so downtrodden and quiet that you never quite make the connection, even if you loved the movie (as I did). The movie’s only real chemistry between any two characters is between Bell and Hunnam; characters that are linked by friendship, and by suffering, and perhaps by a bit more than that.
And here we get to the meat of the issue. We are told, several times, that the relationship between Nicholas and Smike is a friendship, that Nicholas is sweet on the Anne Hathaway character, and that Smike cherishes a tender unrequited passion for the Romola Garai character. We never see them in anything like a compromising position. But the way they look at each other, the way they’re photographed, the places they go to, the risks that Nicholas takes in the relationship… well, if a good ol’ boy from East Texas like your friend here picks up on the gay subtext, it’s pretty blatantly obvious.
Not that this detracts from the quality of the movie in any way, of course, and it certainly enhances the theatricality (if it’s not merely a byproduct of said theatricality and I’m imagining things, which I’m not). It’s more at a wink-and-a-nod level, a celluloid-closet homage than anything else. Dickens purists not given to revisionism will find it out of place, perhaps. Everyone else should sit back, relax, and watch the show for its two-hour length, appreciating both the majestic substance and ineffable style of the work. Nicholas Nickleby is a fine showcase for some classic literature married to some great performances, imbued with a fine sense of theatricality that buoys the movie immensely.