Nicholas Nickleby is a 2002 British-American period comedy-drama film written and directed by Douglas McGrath. The screenplay is based on The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, which originally was published in serial form between March 1838 and September 1839. Charlie Hunnam stars in the title role alongside Nathan Lane, Jim Broadbent, Christopher Plummer, Jamie Bell, Anne Hathaway, Romola Garai, Alan Cumming, and Timothy Spall.
A prologue introduces the Nicklebys, country gentry who enjoy a comfortable life in the Devon countryside until the father dies and leaves his family with no source of income. Nineteen-year-old Nicholas, his mother, and his younger sister, Kate, venture to London to seek help from their wealthy, cold-hearted uncle Ralph, an investor who arranges for Nicholas to be hired as a tutor at Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire and finds Kate work as a seamstress.
Nicholas is horrified to discover his employers, the sadistic Mr and Mrs Squeers, run their boarding school like a prison and physically, verbally, and emotionally abuse their young charges on a regular basis. He eventually rebels and escapes, taking with him the crippled young servant boy Smike. As they journey to London, they stumble upon a theatrical troupe owned and operated by Mr and Mrs Crummles. They cast them in a production of Romeo and Juliet, but despite a successful first night and the couple's invitation to stay, Nicholas is determined to continue their journey to London after hearing that Kate is in trouble.
Nicholas discovers his sister has been subjected to humiliating sexual harassment from the lecherous Sir Mulberry Hawk, a client of their uncle, who has encouraged the man to seduce his niece in the hope that she will succumb and thus cement Hawk's business relationship with him. Nicholas confronts Sir Mulberry and his uncle, renouncing the latter.
Nicholas is reunited with his family, who welcome Smike as one of their own, and finds clerical employment with the kindly Cheeryble brothers, who offer him more than double his previous salary. While thus employed, Nicholas makes the acquaintance of Madeline Bray, an artist who financially supports both herself and her tyrannical father, as her father gambled away his fortune and that of his late wife.
Nicholas' determination to defend his sister's honour leads his uncle to vow he will destroy the young man. What ensues is a series of adventures in which the upstanding Nicholas manages to survive the schemes of his evil uncle, including an attempt to return Smike to Squeers by kidnapping him and an effort to abort Nicholas' growing relationship with Madeline by promising her father he will excuse his debts if the girl weds Hawk. Ralph's designs on Madeline are thwarted when her father dies unexpectedly. Unfortunately, Smike falls ill and soon dies. Soon after, a sinister secret Ralph has harbored for years surfaces, and it is revealed Smike was Ralph's son, whom he had thought dead. Realizing that his son had died the best friend of his most hated enemy, Ralph hangs himself. Kate marries the Cheeryble brothers' nephew Frank, while Nicholas marries Madeline and settles with her in Devon at his father's house and grounds, where Smike is buried.
