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Helen M Jerome reviews
- Cert:
- Running time: 130 minutes
- Year: 2005
- Released: 7th October 2005
- Sound: Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS Digital
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
Written and Directed by:
- Roman Polanski
(The Pianist, Tess, Rosemary’s Baby)
Producer:
- Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde, Roman Polanski
(The Pianist)
Director of Photography:
- Pawel Edelman
(Ray, The Pianist)
Screenplay:
- Ronald Harwood
(The Dresser, The Pianist) (based on novel by Charles Dickens)
Music Score:
- Rachel Portman
(Emma, Chocolat, Manchurian Candidate)
Cast:
- Fagin: Ben Kingsley
Oliver: Barney Clark
Bill Sykes: Jamie Foreman
Artful Dodger: Harry Eden
Nancy: Leanne Rowe
Mr. Brownlow: Edward Hardwicke
Mr. Bumble: Jeremy Swift
Toby Crackit: Mark Strong
If you’re familiar with Roman Polanski‘s cinematic version of Thomas Hardy’s tragic novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, you’ll be prepared for the sheer beauty of this very personal take on Charles Dickens’ masterpiece about childhood, crime and deprivation in 19th Century London. Anyone else might be overwhelmed by its mixture of grit and grandeur.
Said to be an autobiographical nod towards Polanski’s own troubled youth, after his mother died at Auschwitz and young Roman was forced to flee Poland, the opening section of the movie is filled with the set-pieces we know from the book – or the musical Oliver and other cinematic renditions.
The workhouse where Twist asks for more, the effortless cruelty of the adults who plan the boy’s life, his long walk to London and the falling in with the Artful Dodger and his gang of thieves are all ticked off as we speed into a dense web of crime – along with Oliver.
This is 11-year-old Barney Clark‘s first major role, and he is suitably luminous as the innocent and entirely nave boy who merely wants to belong to someone, somewhere.
Then the film really kicks into another gear when Oliver meets Fagin, the godfather for this ragged bunch of junior criminals, who trains them and holds them in his thrall. Ben Kingsley – who previously metamorphosed into Gandhi, not to mention an evil gangster in Sexy Beast – gets a firm grip on the moral dilemmas that suddenly challenge Fagin’s criminal certainty.
We can see him falter as his world collapses and he is in a terrible quandary about his role in the fate of ‘good characters’ Oliver and Nancy (the sympathetic Leanne Rowe) and is genuinely scared by the psychopathic Bill Sykes (another riveting performance by Jamie Foreman).
Much of the credit for the storytelling must go to the collaboration between Polanski and writer Ronald Harwood, as they expertly compress and expand Dickens’ original narrative to help the audience with the drama and characterization.
Cinematographer Pawel Edelman makes the fabulous Prague sets look grimly Victorian. In fact, a couple of the scenes are almost up there with the landscapes of Turner and Constable, most notably when Nancy meets Brownlow on a foggy London bridge and when Sykes and his loyal dog, Bull’s Eye are in hiding outside the city and stand in deserted countryside.
You may have to avert your eyes when Bill deals with Nancy, and yes, there’s the odd chocolate box moment too – echoing Dickens’ own mix of seediness and sentiment – but the overall combination of the look, feel and main performances is quite wonderful.
PERFORMANCES
SCREENPLAY
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OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.