Not fun. Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman play characters that are so unremittingly unpleasant you almost don’t want them onscreen, and the usually reliable Jeremy Shamos is just as bad–that is, sickly fawning–in the other direction. The movie comes across as a play: e.g., stop the action while a character tells his life story. The final five minutes shock the movie to life, but by then it is too late and the dramatic points feel unearned.

I have no idea what someone not familiar with the titular book would think of this scrapbook of moments culled from its pages, but maybe there isn’t such a one who would be watching. As it is, we are left to compare the movie’s impersonations of the memorable characters, from Uriah Heep to Mr. Micawber to Mr. Dick, with our own mental impressions, whether formed from reading, from Phiz illustrations or, most likely, from the 1935 film with W.C. Fields, Basil Rathbone and Edna May Oliver. Interestingly, the least memorable figure is David himself, which helps make Dev Patel’s surprise casting the most satisfying role in this production. The story itself is presented with little narrative thrust or integrity, producing no emotional response in the viewer. And the casting is disconcerting–not because it includes Blacks, Indians and Asians, but because, for instance, the muddle-headed Mr. Dick is played by Hugh Laurie, who always comes off as the most intelligent person on screen.

The punch line, of course, is that Dick Johnson isn’t dead in this loving documentary by his daughter Kirsten. She uses his growing dementia as an excuse to grapple with his inevitable end, in ways it might occur (but probably won’t), how it will affect people and where he will go (which he clearly won’t). How much you like the film depends on how much you like Dick Johnson, or perhaps how much you want to think about death, but I couldn’t help but feel that the sweet old man was being exploited.

A thoroughly unpleasant two hours of snark, cynicism, cigarettes and a drunken boor, with nary a witty line to be heard nor a noble man in sight. Mank’s wife and secretary, who also look alike, are the only people who exude any decency. The story is a “who-cares?,” and it goes back-and-forth with flashbacks to mask its vapidity (granted, the act of writing a screenplay is not inherently dramatic). The movie relies too much on reflected luster from Citizen Kane and Hollywood names from the ’30s, coupled with black-and-white cinematography that mimics its subject. For a good self-referential movie about Hollywood, see Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time…  David Fincher’s Mank is DOA.