I Finally Found A Film I Hate (Part 4)

It's about time I came back to this.
Sorry, things get a bit hectic with one thing or another. I shouldn’t have to tell anyone that but I don’t even have a social life even without lockdown so I don’t have an excuse.
For those of you who haven’t read the previous parts of my review for the complete and utter cringe-course that is 2001’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, please find here.
First though, I should start by saying something.
In the interest of judging this movie on the merits of the book rather than the 2002 film (Especially seeing as this film predates the version I love so much), I found Nicholas Nickleby on Apple Books and have given it a read. It’s been a while.
I have found that the script does follow the book very closely.
So, with that in mind, let me just say...
My opinion has not changed.
You might think I’m being unfair but here’s the thing; there’s more to an adaptation than just following the script.
Some really good adaptations have next to nothing to do with the script of the book they’re based on.
It’s not enough to just work from the dialogue supplied, what’s the highest priority in any adaptation is atmosphere, capturing the same essence and themes. It’s what you feel from an adaptation that makes it work, not just what you see and hear.
The 2002’s version doesn’t follow the book’s script but the important thing is, you couldn’t tell whether or not you read the book. It has such a very closely-written style and prose, similar to how the Lord of the Rings films were scripted.
This 2001 film feels like an awkward school assembly, characters just kind of read off the lines and mumble the in-betweens. I just feel like there’s not enough effort to make the audience feel anything.
Maybe it’s just the time and budget but I’m hesitant to believe that.

Withnail and I is old, frugal-looking and relatively obscure and that movie made me feel so much.
There’s no excuse here. I don’t care if you’re low-budget. That’s no excuse for low-effort.
I should also point out that I have also recently watched Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen since my last part of the review and now I can’t see Charlie Hunnam as 2002’s Nicholas Nickleby dealing with the adversity of his uncle Ralph, Mulberry Hawk or the Squeers family without him yelling ‘Stop fookin’ around, yer coonts!’ and firing a machine gun into the air.

It’s a nice image. Not quite in-keeping with Dickens’ writing but it’s got potential. It would certainly have given the upper-classes something to think about.
Anyway...

We left off with Nicholas disowning his uncle and trying to find his own way in the world with his sister, mother and best friend to care for. Here, in the underbelly of London, the very heart of the Industrial Revolution, a tyrannical leviathan of chains and furnaces where life counts for less than copper pennies, workers are commodities, you are never too young, old, sick or mad to be put to work and a young man who has lost everything counts for less than nothing and his loved ones even less...
And this was before social media so he can’t set up a Buy Me A Coffee donation blog.
Ho-ho, topical!
Anyway, he goes to the local employment office and casually ignores a poor man selling pamphlets and two beggars on the stairway...
Okay, bit hypocritical there. I know he’s desperate but do as you would be done by, mate, that’s Dickens’s main code of ethics, for goodness sake!
I mean, he might have given them something, it’s hard to tell. The scene is shot quite far from the focus. If he was going to show himself to be generous to those more desperate than him, even at such a time as this, it would need more focus.
So I can only assume he walks past.
At the employment office, we see a man who...
Looks so much like a sexual predator it’s scary.
Okay, I know that’s a bit mean and it’s not the actor’s fault but really, you’ve no idea!
It’s the look in his eyes, they’re wide, cold, pallid and unblinking. He’s dressed in thick clothing and a wide hat and has a walking stick and he’s clearly sweating like mad under the film light. He’s like if Willy Wonka met David Lynch.
He’s staring blankly at the people arriving and while the intentions of his character turn out to be benign, it sure isn’t shot that way.
Anyway, we see the queue and I notice for the first time how freakishly tall James D’Arcy is.
Okay, I shouldn’t judge. He may be on a stand at the desk and those of a comfortable upbringing did grow much quicker and fuller than the London-born stragglers but it’s just distracting.
Anyway, he finds out there are no open jobs except for on the board, basically the jobs no-one wants.
And it just doesn’t sound realistic unless the lower-class people there laugh at the down-on-his-luck yuppie who’s never done this before.
So, he stands before the board and the sweaty man walks up to him. Fortunately this is not the part where he is offered a bundle for sexual favours in the alley but in fact it is where we are introduced to Charles Cheeryble.

You see, there’s an unfortunate stereotype around Dickens’ works that all rich people are bastards, hence the term ‘Dickensian’ referring to the behaviour of the typical penny-pinching tyrant with no respect for life who will gladly work his employees to death and destroy any number of natural or man-made homes or livelihoods for the sake of profit.
Not so.
While that often comes into play in his works, as is it did during his time, there are more than a few villains who are of the lower or middle-classes; the brutish Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist, the unprincipled Uriah Heep from David Copperfield, the churlish Dolge Orlick from Great Expectations and arguably the loutish, uneducated and thoroughly sadistic Squears family in Nicholas Nickleby.
On the opposite end, Dickens writes plenty of wealthy and well-educated characters who are firmly on the side of good. Namely, the Cheeryble Brothers.
Now, coming back again to the 2002 version, the Cheerybles are probably my favourite characters.
Charles Cheeryble is played by Timothy Spall while his twin brother Ned is played by Gerard Horan; Not quite as well-known but apart from getting several parts in the Disney-Remakes (Lord Veneering in Cinderella and Monsieur Jean Potts in Beauty and the Beast) he was Mr Clark/Father of Mine from the David Tennant-run of Doctor Who.
You don’t recognise him without his moustache.

But in this video, you can see they’re kind of trying to channel Tweedledum and Tweedledee and their posturing and dithering comes across as quite charming, these well-to-do, kind-hearted but slightly bumbling old men with round bellies and great ginger whiskers and their very Bishie nephew, Frank, to assist them and provide yet more Yaoi-Shipping with Nicholas.

Here though, the actor for Charles Cheeryble is Jonathan Coy who, again, isn’t bad.
He’s another rather obscure British actor who some of you might have seen as Erich Neumann in Conspiracy, George Murray in Downton Abbey or Captain Bracegirdle in the Hornblower Series. I myself have seen him as the Prince of Wales in the Scarlet Pimpernel miniseries starring Richard E Grant.
He’s decent. He gives the part a bit of charm and bounce which is welcome after everything’s been so sullen but, yet again, he’s just not given enough, the way he propositions Nicholas into working for him just looks way too sly and passive-aggressive.
Again, what is this film’s deal with making the protagonists like antagonists possessed of the gift of subtlety?!
So we’re taken to the Cheeryble workshop and- Agh! Colour! My god, how I’ve missed it!
We see Frank Cheeryble asleep at the desk.
Okay, I mean, he’s meant to be hard-working in the books but it’s mostly just a one-bit humour so I’ll let this one slide. He seems alright. Frank is a tad flat in the books (Which is kind of weird seeing as he’ll become quite important later) but he’s a thoroughly good-hearted gentleman. He seems one of the only protagonists this film isn’t making passive-aggressive and manipulative.
On his way to fetch his brother, Charles says a goodbye to a woman his brother was speaking to, a woman who will become important later.
Can I just say how much I hate the ringlet hairstyle the Victorian women had? They look like they’re hiding cocktail sausages behind their ears, I’ve always found the look really unappealing.
I do take back what I said about Jonathan Coy looking like a sexual predator. I do like him here, he’s one of the only actors who’s making use of the Dickens vim and vigour which I have been starved of in this movie.
Ned Cheeryble, per the style, is his brother’s twin and played by the late Simeon Andrews. I’m afraid I haven’t seen him in anything else but, like Jonathan Coy, he’s giving it some oomph and I commend his memory for it.
But here’s where the film shows it can’t really do the Dickens charm right even if the actors can.
The Cheeryble brothers look very unappealing. Though they’re dressed in colour, it’s dulled mulberry all round and they have bald-scalps and frizzy grey-sideburns and, with their turned-up collars, look oddly fleshy and nervous.
I feel as though the film is trying to suggest they’re up to something nasty in the shadows, furthering my point that there’s no-one to really like in this movie.
What’s more, their behaviour comes across as abrasive and insincere, interrupting Nicholas when he tries to explain his predicament and basically ferrying him around to suit their wishes, smattering him with sympathy and repeating each others words while they wring their hands nervously. This is the kind of behaviour people show when they’re trying to lure someone into white-slavery! I think this film has childhood issues.

So afterward, the Nicklebys are celebrating Nicholas’s employment with a light tea.
His mother gives a grin that looks kind of morbid and says that she expected it all along. But the cringey way she says it, you know she’s been spending the last hour banging her head against the wall saying ‘He’s not going to get the job, he’s not going to get the job!’ over and over.
She talks about how he’ll make his fortune in no time at all but it’s so stiff and sounds so insincere.
This woman, she scares me.
Then we go back to Ralph Nickleby and...okay, movie, you’re too fast. You can’t just pick us up and swing us from one scene to another, my neck hurts here.
Newman Noggs comes in and there’s a scene where Ralph doesn’t really answer him until he’s ready to leave then orders him back...
I mean, it works with Charles Dance but it doesn’t work with the story. Ralph Nickleby doesn’t waste his time and, to his credit, he rarely wastes the time of others. He seems too moody to be taken seriously and Newman, whose effectively been ruined and enslaved by this man, doesn’t show the appropriate mood. He’s somewhat fearful of Ralph while utterly despising him and trying to inconvenience him in ways that won’t get him in trouble but, as I’ve said before, this Newman comes across like he’s on equal grounds to Ralph so Ralph just looks like he’s bitching about and going senile. He hears the news of Verisopht’s death and Mulberry Hawk’s fleeing and knowing their debts have died with them. Newman shows obvious satisfaction and leaves without permission and furthers my point about how Ralph doesn’t feel like he’s an intimidating force.

We then cut straight back to Nicholas and Frank around the Cheeryble workshop. They both work as clerks and I can’t really be sure if being a clerk was easier or harder in the days before computers.
Anyway, sausage-hair woman walks by again and Nicholas asks Frank who she is.
Okay, dude, you passed by her twice. She might just be someone picking up an order.
The trouble here is that afterwards, the Cheerybles tell her who the woman is without it even being them he was asking.
This looks creepy. I know standards of how one fell in love at the time weren’t exactly fantastic and, while I admire the man a lot, writing romance was never Dickens’s strong point some agree, but there were ways this could have been done better.
Frankly, the audience haven’t even got to know her yet, much less Nicholas.
She’s appeared in passing once or twice but there’s been no focus on her until Nicholas shows interest in her.
I should explain who this is; Madeline Bray, a young woman with an ailing and hedonistic father who she desperately needs to find adequate and stable financial support for.
In the 2002’s version, she is played by Anne Hathaway of all people but, like Nathan Lane, she’s actually excellent at holding the British RP accent (More so than Charlie Hunnam if I’m honest) and her character radiates a certain fragile beauty that contrasts somewhat with Kate Nickleby’s strong-will. Nicholas sees her several times and it’s made clear she’s more than just a background character. The first time is when they arrive at her uncle’s house and she’s leaving in tears having been refused by Ralph Nickleby for a lease on her father’s crippling debts, Nicholas looks sympathetic but doesn’t get a chance to talk to her. The second time, Nicholas is looking for work and he pauses exhausted by the building and she checks to see if he’s alright. It’s the typical Meet Cute thing. She then goes in to the employment office and again, leaves hiding tears after having no luck. And the third time, when he actually finds out who she is and the depth of her worries, she’s having a nervous breakdown in the Cheeryble’s office, having come to Charles, her father’s old rival in business and in love, in one last desperate appeal.
You see, movie, if this character is important, set her up a bit. I’m all for subtlety but this is not how you do it!

So we are yet again thrown across London, though this time with a bit more point.
The ‘orrible Squeers is back and looking for revenge and Ralph is ready to help deliver it.
I miss the banter Christopher Plummer and Jim Broadbent have in the 2002 version though.
This scene is shot in the crowded high-London roads which are not the ideal place to give away exposition but we learn that they’re looking to get Smike back and slight Nicholas in the process.
Then back again- Ow, my neck!
Good grief, give a lad some fair warning, damn it!
Anyway, we see Smike having his portrait done by Miss La Creevy and Mrs Nickleby is asking him who he knew in Yorkshire, inquiring whether he knows various rich and noble families that her late husband knew of.
Okay, again, this isn’t how her character is meant to come across. She is meant to be a bit dotty and asking questions she shouldn’t expect the answers for but her voice and manner aren’t given any sign that she’s a bit frost-headed or anything, instead she sounds arrogant and snide.
So instead of coming across as flaky, she comes across as nasty.
Here though, we’re introduced to the fact that Smike is developing feelings for Kate Nickleby but when he’s talking, it doesn’t sound as though he’s falling over his words at the sight of her beauty so much as it though he’s falling over his words at the effort of keeping up his Yorkshire accent.
And with the music and Kate’s smile, the film seems to regard this as an obviously blossoming romance.
Forget what I said about subtlety.

Now where the hell are we?
Ah, now we find Madeline Bray and her senile father in a debtor’s prison.
For those of you who don’t know, debtor’s prison was exactly what it sounded like. People with serious debts they couldn’t pay were essentially taken into low-security prison both to work menial labour and to avoid physical repercussions from their debtors. In the 18^th-19^th century, over 10,000 people were imprisoned for debt each year, including Charles Dickens’ own father! By the middle of the 19^th century, sentences had lessened somewhat so that only debts towards the state or picked up from criminal activities would put someone in prison but this was still a serious case.
Here though, I don’t really see the issue.
While everything outside of the Bray’s room is clearly meant to be a prison with the sounds of clinking chains, barred windows and heavy doors thundering outside, their actual room doesn’t look much worse than the average hundred-year-old, reasonably-shabby hotel.
I get that archaism did not have the value it has today but still, you choose now to find a room with brightness and colour?
Maybe that’s the effect Madeline, who paints as a trade, is meant to give off but it doesn’t really give that vibe, mostly because her art has almost no focus.
In fact, it’s harder to say what this film does focus on than what it doesn’t.
So to fill you all in, Nicholas Nickleby has been asked by the concerned Cheeryble brothers to act as a go-between for their donations to her and her father, knowing that her cantankerous father will never accept money from them. He intends to buy the paintings she makes and commission her for a tidy sum and hopefully get her out of her financial troubles and, in doing so, perhaps get to know her better.
I’m afraid Katherine Holme, who plays Madeline, doesn’t have an extensive acting career and her IMDB page doesn’t show anything she’s been in after 2004. But Walter Bray’s actor, the late Philip Bond, was quite prominent in 60s and 70s British films. He was Ganatus in William Hartnell’s Doctor Who, Stapleton in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and Kenneth Ripwell in The Saint.
And well, again, the atmosphere they’re trying to show here is appropriate, sullen and uncertain, but it’s pretty much the mood the film has had from start to finish so I don’t feel anything.
When Walter Bray sees the money, he’s overjoyed and tells Madeline to ask the guards for grapes, the newspaper and some wine. Okay, not exactly the vibe he’s meant to give off but judging by Madeline’s compliant action, maybe he’s trying to get back on his feet and wants a bit of refreshment before taking on the world again. He doesn’t look well after all and, while he hasn’t the best priorities, he doesn’t look nefarious or anything.
But when Nicholas points out that Madeline might want something as well, Walter’s character seems to shift all at once and defensively tells him to get lost.
I have a neck-ache again. It’s not just scenes that throw themselves about but character personalities it seems.
Coming back yet again to the 2002 version, Nicholas meeting Madeline Bray, who isn’t in debtor’s prison but is very clearly on the edge of finding herself there, allows him to be introduced to her father, this time named ‘Nigel Bray’ (Not sure why) who is played by none other than Argus Filch himself, David Bradley, who is simultaneously channeling the spirit of Lord Walder Frey a good nine years before Game of Thrones. That’s impressive!
You see this cranky, petulant old man in bed, sneering and snarling, and you just dread to imagine what Madeline’s life has been like for next god-knows-how-many years.
THIS was a good opportunity to have a character who’s kind of silly but at the same time very harsh and intimidating.
He’s falling into senility and hasn’t learned a thing from his desperation. Walter/Nigel Bray is a wastrel, an unapologetic spendthrift, gambler and philanderer who’s ruined himself, his late wife and is now ruining his daughter. And his first and really only scene in the 2002 version perfectly captures that!

· Nigel Bray: Madeline...Who is this...Who told this stranger we could be seen?!
· Nicholas: I’m here to purchase some paintings, sir. These three, please.
· Madeline: Very well.
· Nigel Bray: (Ignoring him entirely) I want a newspaper. And grapes. And another bottle of wine!
· Madeline: (Worriedly) Yes, father, very well, I’ll just finish with this gentleman.
· Nigel Bray: (Irritant) I want them now!
· Madeline: (Tiredly takes a deep breath and paces over to him tentatively, speaking with a quiet, pleading tone) Please, father. This purchase will help us pay for the things you want.
· Nigel Bray: (Sneering with one eye twitching) This...never happened when your mother was alive!

Just that scene, those lines. Take them in. You get a real feel for just what a selfish, inconsiderate, pathetic old man Bray is, Walter or Nigel, utterly blind to anyone else’s needs but his own and determined to take his foul mood and miserable situation out on everyone, up to and including his own daughter, the one person who hasn’t left him.
In doing so, you also get a feel for what sort of character Madeline is. So long-suffering and bound to such a thankless man out of familial duties and, to put plainly, the handicaps of such a tender heart as hers.
I didn’t cry for Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada but I cried for her in this.
Her feelings come out for Nicholas very appropriately and well-timed. Now, after everything, he is exactly what she hoped he would be and what he needs, a helping-hand. Which Nicholas is only too happy to hold out for her at last.

Okay, Ralph again, this time I was ready for you, ha!
Here, he actually confronts the Cheeryble Brothers about employing his wayward nephew.
This, I admit, I would have absolutely loved to have seen in the 2002 version.
More so here since it’s rather misused.
2001’s Cheeryble Brothers get very annoying repeating each other’s words, parroting to and fro.
In fact, parroting was brought up in the 2002 version.

· Ralph Nickleby: Noggs! Where is the morning paper I left on my desk?
· Newman Noggs: On my desk.
· Ralph Nickleby: (Brusquely) Bring it to me.
· Newman Noggs: (Sulkily) ‘Bring-it-to-me’. ‘Bringittome’.
· Ralph Nickelby: Stop parroting me.
· Newman Noggs: I wish I was a parrot. I’d fly away.
· Ralph Nickleby: I wish you were a parrot too. I’d wring your neck.

You see, I’d enjoy Timothy Spall and Gerard Horan going toe-to-toe with Christopher Plummer. Doddery as they appear, the Cheeryble hide a biting wit and a merchant’s cunning and unfortunately the only time they cross paths with him in the 2002 version is at the end where they tell Ralph Nickleby, curtly and plainly, that his nephew wishes to have words with him.
Here though, yet again, Ralph comes off as too kicked-around for any moral victory over him to feel worthwhile. And the Cheerybles come off as snide and pompous, especially when they inform him that his financial losses are becoming common knowledge

So then we have Nicholas meeting Madeline for...I guess what the Victorians would have called a date? It’s basically just them pacing through the upper streets of London and making small-talk.
I’m afraid Katherine Holme has caught the stilted sickness and doesn’t really show a whole lot of emotion. The dialogue isn’t anything to write home about either. It’s like like From Justin To Kelly-level of bad but it doesn’t really build the characters much.
At the same time, Kate is helping Smike brave a walk across London himself. So decent juxtapositions, it’s just a shame there’s not a whole lot of life in these characters.
Now look, in general, I’m not into romance. It’s not my forte, either reading or writing. I’ve never confessed to being a romantic and neither did Dickens, in the literal sense anyway.
But I just can’t stop thinking about how the 2002 version did it, probably one of the only films where I actually enjoyed the lovey-dovey scenes just by how they were filmed and how the characters acted with such compelling and sincere dialogue, their characters on such equal levels, that I think holds up just as well today with modern ethics, as it does either in 2002 or the 1800s.

I have to admit though, more scenes with Kate and Smike would have been so nice to see in the 2002 version. Romola Garai and Jamie Bell are many viewer’s OTP.
Soon afterwards, however, as Smike is finally seeing some beauty in the big city, he is grabbed by the old man of his nightmares, Wackford Squeers.
It’s weird. He’s just nabbed in broad daylight. Nobody does a thing.
Admittedly now, in the 2002 version, his kidnapping of Smike is also rather clumsy but at least there, it kind of shows that people on the streets just kept their heads down and their mouths shut. And it’s extra poignant since Smike went to a small stall to get Kate a little present. It was shot in a fairly run-down spot in London where Kate took pity on some girl selling ribbons. Smike doubles back to find the right gift and gets a sack over his head. Kate runs back to search for Smike and sees Squeers’ carriage running off, too late for her to follow. So she runs back to the Cheerybles and her brother to let them know the crisis is afoot.
So, could have been a bit more fluid but the fearful, desperate tone is set.
Here though, it happens in what is probably a very high-class part of London which only makes me wonder how no-one noticed, not least because the very shabby Smike and Squeers look more noticeable in higher-London.
Oh, and Fanny Squeers is with them. Making use of her only character trait; being fat.
Oh joy...

So we then see the Squeers cackling like hyaenas in the local tavern.
Normally I like cheesy, over-the-top villain scenes but the Squeers in this are just so ineffective as villains and indirectly unappealing as characters that any minute with them feels like they’ve worn out their welcome.
Fortunately, it seems, they decided not to make this one last as long as John Browdie and Tilda show up again, Tilda acting very cattish towards Fanny who lies about her father visiting local gentry and, of course, gets zero support from her family in the process. When characters just insult Fanny Squeers when she hasn’t done enough to earn such scorn. She’s unpleasant as a character but we only see that after characters have behaved unpleasantly towards her. It’s obvious that the writers think that by making her fat, ugly and stupid, it’ll feel justified but it doesn’t! And I shouldn’t have to tell anyone it doesn’t!
Anyway, it takes zero time at all for Squeers to boast to John Browdie and Tilda that he’s got Smike captured so that tensions out of the way.
In the 2002 version, it was quick but openly a bit more convoluted. Kate tells Nicholas that Spike’s been taken. Noggs comes to tell Nicholas that Ralph and Squeers have made such a deal and tells him that Squeers is staying in the local inn, the Saracen’s Head (No jokes about one of my OCs). Nicholas sees John Browdie who he asks in sweetening up Squeers in order to get the information. This leads to a very funny scene where John Browdie has to get the tavern singing to disguise the sounds of Nicholas climbing up the window with varying degrees of franticness, then finally hides Nicholas and Smike leaving the building by opening the door between them and Squeers and pretending to inspect it. Just the line at the end “Fine door, that.” to everyone’s confused expressions, is golden!
I suppose you’d have to see it to fully get it. The point is it’s very fluid and funny.
And no-one’s losing their minds.
Here though, it’s a fairly uneventful scene where John Browdie and Tilda release Smike at night, let him leave, yell ‘Fire’ to wake up Squeers and...
Um...is that it? I mean, I’m glad we didn’t get anymore cheap hysterics but after the number of times this movie has gone out of its way to be awkward and manic, I would have thought now would be appropriate.
Well, it’s wasted every other opportunity to make use of any tension, why start now?
Afterward, Smike runs about the London streets, lost and weeping, breaking down in desperation as he hallucinates seeing the Squeers everywhere he looks then he comes across a man he remembers from the deepest pits of his memories and...
Hey that sound effect! That’s the emote of the Temple of the Damned building from Warcraft III!
I mean, I don’t think they stole it or anything. Lots of SFX Studios work for all number of media productions but it’s just weird to hear in this Dickens production of all things.
So Smike eventually crawls out of his PTLSD trip and finally, tearfully, makes his way to Nogg’s home who takes him to the Nicklebys.
You know, John and Tilda, it may have been worth finding out if he knew his way home before you sprung him, just saying. In case you weren’t aware, he isn’t the fastest fellow, physically or mentally.

Then, we learn something interesting. The man Smike saw, the man buried under his memories.
He’s alive and roaming London’s streets. And runs straight into Ralph Nickleby who also knows him.
This is Brooker, played in this version by Donald Sumpter (Another Game of Thrones actor, Maester Luwin) who was once Ralph Nickleby’s clerk before Newman Noggs came along. Brooker found something unmentioned to the audience but known well between him and Ralph, something he tried to blackmail him with. Ralph, in response, called in a loan Brooker couldn’t pay and had him imprisoned and transported to the Australian penal colonies. Brooker has now returned, tracked Ralph down and makes the same threat but Ralph waves him off coldly and tells him to do his worst as he didn’t get where is with a perfect reputation in any case.
This scene, I admit, is actually pretty powerful. Charles Dance and David Sumpter are going at each other fiercely in terms of dialogue. Both appear desperate, dangerous men and while the scene is over quickly, it is at least memorable.
My problem here is where and how it happens.
At this point, Ralph has just been so infuriated by everything that giving him one more enemy and one more sword hanging over him is quite redundant. There’s little he still owns and at this point, everyone’s out to get him anyway. Yet again, it just makes him appear weaker and more vulnerable which means we can’t take him seriously as a villain.
Now, in the 2002 version, this scene happened straight after Verisopht had broken ties with Ralph Nickleby, the first scenario where Ralph is utterly confounded. One moment of vulnerability is all it took for Brooker to crawl out of the woodwork and threaten the infrastructure of Ralph’s personal empire. 2002’s Brooker’s played by Phil Davis who played the ‘Killer Cabbie’ in Sherlock. He’s much quieter but the way he approaches Ralph Nickleby is very meaningful and while the atmosphere is quiet and calm, it’s memorable and the dialogue is excellent.

· Brooker: I see from your eyes, you remember me. If the change you see in me, from so long ago, does not move you-
· Ralph Nickleby: It does not.
· Brooker: ...Then let the knowledge that I am as helpless and destitute as a child-
· Ralph Nickleby: Any man can earn his bread.
· Brooker: (Frustrated) How? Would you show me the means?
· Ralph Nickleby: I did. Once. Not again.
· Brooker: It’s seven years and three months since you and I fell out. Do you remember the cause?
· Ralph Nickleby: (Dismissively) You claimed part of the profits of some of my business, alleging that you had brought it to me. When I refused you, you threatened to reveal some...oh, what was it you said?
· Brooker: Hold I’d gained over you in your absence.
· Ralph Nickleby: Rifling through my files, I suspect. So I had you arrested for an advance you had not repaid.
· Brooker: Five pounds! That’s all I owed you.
· Ralph Nickleby: (Snide) Indeed, it was more...There was the interest.
· Brooker: Seven years I have been gone, under the most crushing conditions, to return as you see me now, ready to renew my offer...but on terms much easier for you than before. You will want this information. I want only to eat and drink.
· Ralph Nickleby: Is that all?
· Brooker: It depends on you whether that’s all or not.
· Ralph Nickleby: Ha! Are you threatening to tell others of whatever you learned when you were my clerk? To be plain with you, Mr Brooker...the world already knows what sort of man I am...and I do not grow poorer. You cannot stain a black coat.
· Brooker: (Desperately) That’s not what I meant...Are you those of your own name dear to you? If they are-
· Ralph Nickleby: They are not.
· Brooker: But-
· Ralph Nickleby: But nothing! If we meet again, and you so much as notice me with one begging gesture...you shall see the inside of a jail once more. That is my answer to your trash!

You see, Ralph Nickleby, at this point, is not yet beaten and he wants people to know it. He’s a paranoid man but he still has so much to fight his nephew with. This scene is something to hold onto and confirms to us that he is not invincible and his past conceals a dark secret. So we don’t think much of Brooker at this point, much as Ralph doesn’t. And that’s our mistake...
It works when it’s earlier. The audience need to almost forget about it until right near the end where the truth is revealed.
2001’s version of Brooker comes right when Ralph seems at his most desperate and petty and so bringing another threat into his life feels wasted at this stage. In his own words, he’s got enough troubles.
And so, ironically, we’re likely to forget this scene before we would forget the 2002 version even though this one happened much closer to when it will be relevant to the story, purely because it means so little for Ralph at this stage.

So Smike is rescued and back with the Nicklebys and Kate queries about Nicholas falling in love with someone and...
Groan...
Can we go back to the Squeers?
I’m sorry but Nicholas and Kate in this version just act so stilted and monotone throughout and so trifling with any emotions involved, I get flashbacks to bad school drama performances.
I don’t think it’s the actors fault, the mood is just too watered-down and the dialogue is too bland for me to feel anything.
I’ll admit Nicholas breaching the news to his sister in the 2002’s version was a bit trivial but it least it came off as natural. Nicholas was explaining his dilemma and confusion about who Madeline was and what she was going through and Kate appeared at his shoulder as a wise and cheerfully inquisitive sibling who was ready to give her precocious brother advice on how to approach and impress a young woman. It didn’t last long but it worked.
There’s none of that here in the 2001 version, none of it!
Our protagonists are a family of freaking Vulcans! There’s so little emotion expressed for when the scenes need to invoke sympathy or quiet consideration. And any attempt to show more than a teaspoon of emotion comes off as fake and creepy.
Again, I’m not sure how much of this is the actor’s fault but I just do not get what the director was going for here.
It’s one half of this movie is Twilight and the other half is Lazytown on crack! And I know the latter sounds like fun but it’s not the good kind of crack (Comparatively anyway. Ideally, you shouldn’t take it at all but for the purposes of the metaphor...)
And that’s me halfway through the second part of 2001’s Nicholas Nickleby and me thoroughly exhausted.
What better way to make up for my lack of chapters lately than through mental torture?
I hope it entertained you because if so, that makes one of us.
See you next time, hopefully with more time on my hands and utter more relaxed circumstances.
In any case, I hope I provided your trying days with some respite. Thank you.

Comments

[Bronycommander]

I hear ya. Some things are just badly thought through

[Purple Patch]

5337648
Well, that's the thing.
There are glimpses of goodness here and there with the good actors and the conflicts involved. But there's no focus and the dialogue just doesn't feel natural or compelling.
It feels like the director didn't want to make this movie. And while there are plenty of directors who were obligated to make movies (E.g. Unnecessary sequels or over-executively-tooled works) it doesn't make sense how something so obscure and with such a crowd of localised talent would be put together with such apathy.

[Bronycommander]

5337659
Yeah. It's a pity at times, isn't it?