Oliver Twist

“Please, sir, I want some more…” and more we get from Roman Polanski’s adaptationof Dickens’s famous novel, the umpteenth screen version of the Victorian rags to riches story, which ears an hounourable place in the canon. With so many precedents to go on, a new take needs to be just that, and perhaps Polanski is a little too reverent in his approach, resulting in a narrative that lacks verve. Critics are disagreed about the effectiveness of Barney Clark in the title role, but everyone knows that the devil gets all the best roles and Ben Kingsley’s Fagin acts everyone else off the expensive-looking and meticulously detailed Prague set. Traditional and highly watchable.