Inclusivity and modernity in the period piece can breathe new life into centuries-old stories
A mainstay in the film industry since the earliest days of Hollywood, the period drama is finding its place within the global film canon. Yet, many films of the genre whitewash history and often fail to modernize their biographical or literary adaptations for a 21st-century audience. A number of modern audience members long to see their own identities and beliefs represented on screen, while others grow defensive and volatile at the idea of change.
Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield and Greta Gerwig’s Little Women are both recent adaptations of popular 19th-century novels. Only Iannucci’s comedy features diverse leads, Dev Patel’s dark curls wild and windswept as he parades around in period dress, bringing Charles Dickens’ hero to life. Gerwig recruits her usual collaborators Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet as she molds Louisa May Alcott’s story into a feminist tale emphasizing the importance of ambition and familial bonds. Each retelling embraces contemporary themes and ideas from the source material, but Hollywood needs to take bigger risks with casting and storytelling when it comes to creating inclusive, modern period dramas.
Struck by how previous adaptations failed to reflect on the novel’s contemporary nature, Iannucci’s film tells the same story through a new lens. Patel originally played Copperfield as the typical suave and stuffy male lead—Mr. Darcy over Monsieur Thenardier—but Iannucci injects effervescent and comedic energy into the film, keeping the story from feeling too rigid. “[The characters are] in their own modern times, therefore I want the audience to feel they’re watching people that are present in front of them,” Iannucci told the Los Angeles Times. “I wanted to get away from the conventions of how a costume drama should be made and cast.” Casting Oscar-nominee and internet heartthrob Patel, an English actor of Indian descent, as a Dickensian hero breathes new life into the story. “I never thought I would ever have a film like this where I get to be in period Victorian costume on those sets come into my orbit,” Patel told the Associated Press at the film’s premiere. It doesn’t hurt that he wears Copperfield’s playful period costumes so well.
Dickens spent his life calling attention to the marginalized, and David Copperfield explores the plight of homelessness and the subject of social status, two timeless issues. Young Copperfield, played by a mischievous Jairaj Varsani, faces similar challenges children face today. In America, 2.5 million children are homeless while 13 million are food insecure. By including similar struggles in his film, Iannucci shows that even in whimsical worlds these contemporary issues are still pervasive and impactful.
Each new Little Women adaptation tends to focus on themes from the novel relevant to its time, Gerwig choosing to focus on familial bonds, female ambition, and the importance of individuality. “I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it,” Ronan sobs during one of the film’s most iconic scenes, shown during her Academy Award nomination. Gerwig’s rendition makes the Marches contemporary bohemians and creatives, each sister with her own artistic pursuit, but turning more of the story on its head would have made a more impactful adaptation. Alcott describes Laurie as an attractive boy “with black eyes, brown skin, and curly black hair,” yet a white actor always plays the role. She originally planned for Jo to remain a “literary spinster,” but readers made strong demands she end up married. Many modern fans see the strong-willed woman as a queer heroine because of the “funny match” Alcott was forced to create for her protagonist. By exploring these ambiguous details from the novel, Gerwig could have created a new inclusive canon for the story.
During Alcott’s time, Italians like Laurie were treated with far more hostility and contempt than today. Modern retellings could feature a non-white actor in the role, contextualizing Laurie’s place as a fellow outsider with the poorer March sisters. Similarly, many sapphic women claim Jo March as a patron saint, heralding the tomboyish protagonist as one of the first queer literary characters they encountered in adolescence. “I didn’t want to assign anything that felt too modern to her but…there’s lots of stuff,” Gerwig told Film Comment. A lot of this “stuff” ends up on the cutting room floor, but a positive and deep exploration of queerness in a 19th-century setting via a character as iconic as Jo March would help modernize the adaptation even further.
As Hollywood continues reviving the same handful of Jane Austen and William Shakespeare adaptations every few years, there are many unexplored, diverse stories focused on or written by people of color and queer individuals. If we continue reusing the same source material, there is no reason a modern retelling must be as white and straight as the original.