Moriarty

Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

It’s a fair question. After all, no less a filmmaker than David Lean has tackled this story before, and the musical version actually won Best Picture when it was released. So why do we need another version of OLIVER TWIST in 2005?

Roman Polanski says he wanted to make something his kids could watch, and he looked around first at available projects. Pretty much every kids film out there in development right now is some sort of special-effect heavy HARRY POTTER-esque adventure, which didn’t appeal to Polanski at all. When he finally realized that OLIVER TWIST was what he wanted to do, he called Ronald Harwood, the screenwriter who won the Oscar for Polanski’s last film THE PIANIST, and Harwood evidently worked very quickly to craft this new version of the story.

But still... what does Polanski bring to this oft-told tale? What insight or understanding does he add that reinvigorates the story? In the end, is the effort worth it?

Absolutely.

The first trick in getting this right is finding a great Oliver, a kid who will make a compelling and sympathetic lead. Barney Clark hasn’t done a lot of work prior to this, and that seems to be a good thing. He’s incredibly natural in the lead role. He manages the trick of coming across as innocent but not sugary sweet. He’s a real kid having real reactions to the crazed world in which he finds himself orphaned, always scrambling for survival yet never discouraged or defeated. Polanski’s been orphaned more than once in his own life, cast adrift by circumstance, so if anyone understands Oliver’s desire to find a place he can call home, it would be him. Yet he never overplays it. He refuses to make the material gooey or to downplay some of the darkest moments that Dickens devised.

In every great Dickens story, there are great memorable characters who drop in and out of the story, and any great adaptation of his stories has got to make those characters come to life in equally vivid fashion. Ben Kingsley goes deliriously over the top as Fagin, and he picks a few key moments to play in a way that suggests that Fagin’s scenery chewing is a cover for a genuine cunning. Harry Eden makes a nice Artful Dodger, but he’s underdeveloped, underused. His introduction promises more than the film ultimately delivers. But if his character suffers a bit, Jamie Foreman positively steals the show as Bill Sykes. Foreman’s one of those guys we’ve seen in a number of films in increasingly bigger and better roles. He was really good as the Duke in LAYER CAKE, for example, but this is the moment where he’s finally been given the showcase he’s been building to. Sykes is a great villain, and Foreman plays it dark. Even Fagin is obviously scared of Sykes, so it makes sense that all the kids would be as well. When he finally snaps, it’s shocking, but not gratuitious. It’s a really powerful moment.

Prague makes an excellent double for London, and the production design by Alan Starski is obviously a heightened reality, but subtle. This isn’t LEMONY SNICKET. Pawel Edelman’s crisp photography is the perfect visual compliment to Polanski’s overall approach, stylish but subdued. If you want to set this in the context of other film versions of TWIST, I don’t think it’s quite as dreamy or beautiful as David Lean’s version, and it’s not a crowd-pleasing theme park ride like OLIVER! There’s an integrity and a grit that sets Polanski’s version apart, and Harwood’s simple, stripped-down adaptation is definitely a big part of that. If you’re not familiar with the story, you won’t notice all the ways that Harwood has trimmed away the dense detail of Dickens’s writing, but even if you do know the story well, it’s tasteful work, elegant. Oliver’s in and out of the workhouse fast, his iconic “Please, sir, I want more” nearly thrown away right up front. He’s on the road to London fairly fast, and he hooks up with Fagin and the other boys by about 20 minutes into the film.

Again... from personal experience, Polanski knows that your whole life can change in an instant, and he seems to be interested in finding the one moment that Oliver’s entire life hinges on, and focusing the film’s narrative on that instant.

Here, it seems that Oliver’s encounter with Mr Brownlow (Edward Hardwicke) is the thing that changes not only Oliver’s life, but the lives of everyone around him. Because Oliver is an orphan, he views all of these men as father figures... Fagin, Sykes, Brownlow... and he learns from all of them in different ways. The women in his life show him kindness for the most part, but Nancy (Leanne Rowe) in particular sticks her neck out for him, and Oliver learns a hard lesson as a result. Some parents might complain about a few intense moments towards the end of the film, but I think that’s exactly what makes the film worthwhile. It’s a hard world, and people get hurt in it, and Oliver Twist somehow survives. By making the stakes so powerfully clear, Polanski makes the film matter. He gives it a real pulse. This isn’t some stiff costume drama churned out for TV sweeps week, and it’s not a sterile kiddyfied big summer movie version. It’s just a sincere, impeccably crafted retelling of a classic, invigorated by one of our best filmmakers working from a place of obvious passion, and it’s well worth your time when it opens on September 30th.

Oddly, though, it wasn’t the best film I saw last week. It wasn’t even the second best. I’ll get to those in the next couple of days, along with my second DVD SHELF of the week. Until then...