![]() ![]() Oliver Twist runs into the usual problems of films based on Dickens - it's episodic and long (130 minutes). Here he's the villain who does the right thing, recalling the decent Nazi officer who helped the utterly wasted Szpilman to live because he appreciated his playing. ![]() The, er, twist here has to do with Oliver's brutal, eventually insane pickpocket mentor, Fagin, an infamously Anti-Semitic character, more than once imagined through blatantly anti-Semitic filters, with hook nose and bent body to reflect his depraved and ugly soul. In part, this is because he's so frail and pale and broken - vulnerability and victimization make him sympathetic, of course, as does his stubborn faith in human goodness. ![]() Still, in Roman Polanski's film of Dickens' saga, Oliver is mostly adorable. This OLIVER TWIST is nothing like the 1968 musical no one is happy to be poor and dirty, and ongoing lack of hope makes street kids more desperate and crude than cute. ![]()
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