Nicholas Nickleby [M]

To the harsh streets of London comes a family who have lost their loving father, husband, and head of the household. Now it's up to young Nicholas Nickleby to protect and support his mother and sister.

I'd never even heard of this film before. They way I came across it was by attempting to sort and alphabetise our Drama section at work. I had a quick glance at the cover, saw all these familiar names and faces and thought "this might be a good flick to watch over the weekend." So this is exactly what I did.

Nicholas Nickleby is a young man who has recently lost his father. He comes from a poor family, which consists of himself, his mother and his sister. After his father dies, it falls on Nicholas to support his family and they go to London to seek help from their very rich, but very harsh uncle. Whilst his is set to work in a dressmaker's shop, Nicholas is given employment at a boys' boarding school. When he arrives, he is horrified to find that the poor boys are incredibly mistreated by their sadistic headmaster and headmistress. Being a man of passion and morals, Nicholas leaves the school after giving the headmaster a taste of his own medicine. Taking with him, a poor and unbelievably abused crippled boy, Nicholas arrives to find that the headmaster has sent a letter to his uncle embellishing the circumstances of Nicholas's leaving his employment. His uncle, being a heartless and cold man, then makes it his highest priority to strike down poor Nicholas until he can be "struck no more." Now it's up to Nicholas to protect his family from his enraged uncle, but just how far will he go to do this?

Based on the book by Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby is a beautifully filmed drama that is perfectly balanced between the confronting and abusive scenes/themes and the scenes where it the audience is reminded that not everything ends in tragedy, this is happiness and goodness in the world.

The performance from Charlie Hunnam who plays Nicholas is absolutely amazing. From the beginning of the film to the end, I was completely enthralled, sharing every single one of Nicholas's emotions whether it be anger, happiness, doubt or sadness. I had tears well up during numerous scenes.

As I mentioned before, this film has an abundance of familiar names and faces, which is what led me to hire it. Throughout the film, you will recognise...

Nathan Lane

Anne Hathaway

Jim Broadbent

Juliet Stevenson

Jamie Bell

Timothy Spall

Dame Edna Everage

Barry Humphries

Alan Cummings

And Christopher Plummer as Nicholas's unfeeling uncle.

This was a truly beautiful film, filled with drama, sinister plotting, the abuse of young boys, beautiful young ladies, love, humour, and the making of new friends and family. Very lovely indeed.