Roman Polanski’s “Oliver Twist” is yet another stab at bringing DWEM classic literature to the big screen. Would Charles Dickens be happy with it? I highly doubt it. Polanski condensed Dickens’s novel from 1841 down to two characters: Fagin (Ben Kingsley) and Bill Sykes (Jamie Foreman).
We seldom hear more than “Yes, sir” from Oliver (Barney Clark) and the only development Oliver is going through is the journey of a poor educated orphan to a wealthy situated orphan. Fagin on the other hand undergoes a catharsis of a kind while Sykes is the stereotypical remorseless villain. Stuck in that web of thieves Oliver seems more like an extra througout the whole movie and only the Artful Dodger (Harry Eden) manages to stand out.

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