Oliver Twist

I have never seen any of the previous film adaptations of Oliver Twist (there are lots of them they tell me) and while I've always known the story, I've never read the book either, so the stuff director Roman Polanski and screenwriter Ronald Harwood, the Academy Award winning team of The Pianist put here is all I know for sure about the Charles Dickens story, and it was excellent.

Barney Clark plays the title character, a ten year old orphan who joins a house of pickpocketers in London led by Sir Ben Kingsley's Fagin, an old criminal mind who teaches the kids to steal on the streets. They steal jewerly at times, but it's mostly food and stuff they need to survive. Fagin is not a bad person though, he gives the kids food, clothes and a place to live, and he treats them well. Between the kids there's Artful Dodger (played by Harry Eden), the leader pickpocketer and the one who first meets a very hurt and hungry Oliver on the streets and brings him to Fagin's. And there's also Nancy (played by Leanne Rowe), one of the young prostitutes who would later risk it all for Oliver.
Bill Sykes (played by Jamie Foreman) is the evil man of the story. He hits the kids and hates Oliver, and he's the master thief who robs houses and uses guns.

Oliver is not unhappy with Fagin and the kids, but once he gets to taste a better life he doesn't want to come back. That comes from Mr. Brownlow (played by Edward Hardwicke), an old bookstore owner who takes Oliver to his house after he's mistakenly accused of robbery. Mr. Brownlow wants helps Oliver, but Bill finds out and comes for him.

The acting is amazing from young Barney Clark to Sir Ben Kingsley, who gives a great performance if kind of caricaturesc at times. But the technical aspects of the movie are even better. Polanski's direction is excellent, and the cinematography, costumes, sets, and also the score by Rachel Portman, all award worthy stuff.

Coming from Roman Polanski, it's no surprise to me that Oliver Twist is a very dark movie that could easily scare children. While there's no adult language or sex, there's violence towards animals and even more towards kids, but it's all essential to the story, and I think that if I were a kid I would have loved all of it.