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Oliver Twist (PG) 130 mins

Oliver Twist is one of those books which you don't need to have read to feel you know: the pitiful waif who famously asked for more is familiar to everybody.  Dickens's characters display such extreme contrasts of black villainy and angelic purity that they can sometimes seem like caricatures, and Barney Clark's Oliver has been accused of being one-dimensional, but the dark side of Victorian life, particularly in the cities, was real enough, children were indeed cruelly exploited or left to fend for themselves by legal or illegal means, and Oliver's innocence exists to emphasize this.  Roman Polanski's film undoubtedly owes much to his own experiences as a ten-year-old orphan adrift in Nazi-occupied Cracow.  As the critic Roger Ebert has pointed out, "Oliver Twist was Dickens' first proper novel, after the episodic Pickwick Papers. In it he found his voice by listening to the memories of the child he had been. Polanski I think is listening to such memories as well."  Perhaps this is why he makes Fagin (a brilliant performance by Sir Ben Kingsley), if not exactly sympathetic, at least more morally ambiguous than he is usually portrayed.  Those who have read the book should be warned that Dickens's labyrinthine plot has been considerably simplified.

"This is joyful stuff, which at times feels like a masterpiece"

"Kingsley's Fagin is alternately pitiful, hilarious, full of energy and a masterclass in acting. It's impossible to take your eyes off him when he is on the big screen and even in the scenes where he has little to say he delivers a hugely memorable performance."

"Pawel Edelman's mesmerizing cinematography and Jindrich Koci's astonishing art direction create a stunning portrait of Victorian England."  Tiscali UK
 

www.sonypictures.com/movies/olivertwist

Last modified: 20-Jun-2008

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