'The Personal History Of David Copperfield' Trailer: Dev Patel Does Dickens For The Creator Of 'Veep'

The Personal History of David Copperfield is an utter delight from beginning to end, and soon, more audiences will get to see that for themselves. Hailing from Veep creator Armando Iannucci, this funny, charming, inventive film takes an almost slapstick approach to the work of Charles Dickens, resulting in something special. Watch The Personal History of David Copperfield trailer below.

Taking a colorblind casting approach and leaning heavily into the comedy, The Personal History of David Copperfield feels unlike any Dickens adaptation to date. It's also charming as hell. While this film comes from Armando Iannucci, the mind behind Veep, In the Loop, The Death of Stalin, and more, it's surprisingly sweet, and not at all as acidic and as some of his other work. Dev Patel is David Copperfield, whose pleasant childhood is suddenly upended by tragedy and misfortune. The film follows David's journey into adult, and beyond.

Patel is great here, as is pretty much the entire cast, which includes Peter Capaldi, Morfydd Clark, Daisy May Cooper, Rosalind Eleazar, Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton, Ben Whishaw, Benedict Wong, Gwendoline Christie, and Paul Whitehouse. I caught The Personal History of David Copperfield at TIFF last year, and came away from the film with a big, dumb grin on my face. As I wrote in my review:

On the page, in Dickens's prose, these characters are silly but highly memorable – and believable. But that doesn't always translate to the screen, and one miscalculation could've saddled The Personal History of David Copperfield with a cast of insufferable, quirky weirdos. Instead, the cavalcade of characters who flit in and out of David's life all make one hell of an impact. We love spending time with them – just as we love spending time with this movie in general. The Personal History of David Copperfield is so warm, so inviting, so pure, that it will make your heart sing. We don't deserve a movie as overwhelmingly charming as this, but how lucky we are to have it.

This trailer lists the release date as only "coming soon", but other sources say The Personal History of David Copperfield will arrive in U.S. theaters May 8. Don't miss it.

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD re-imagines Charles Dickens' classic ode to grit and perseverance through the comedic lens of its award-winning filmmakers— giving the Dickensian tale new life for a cosmopolitan age with a diverse ensemble cast of stage and screen actors from across the world. Emmy winners and Oscar nominees Armando Iannucci (IN THE LOOP, THE DEATH OF STALIN, HBO'S Veep) and Simon Blackwell (IN THE LOOP, HBO'S Succession) lend their wry, yet heart-filled storytelling style to revisiting Dickens' iconic hero on his quirky journey from impoverished orphan to burgeoning writer in Victorian England.