Oliver Twist

This was an enjoyable version that held my attention despite familiarity with the material. It was more detailed than most dramatisations. Timothy Spall was very good. I had some problems with it, however:

* The music was intrusive.

* Bill Sikes was well acted, but seemed, unless my eyes deceived me, to have perfectly plucked eyebrows. After so much effort was taken with makeup (especially teeth), this was strange.

* Julian Rhind-Tutt was weak as Monks, and his hair seemed out of period.

* Edward Fox has become a mannered caricature of himself.

The performances are excellent all around. Sophie Okonedo is a fine Nancy, so thoroughly believable as is Tom Hardy, Timothy Spall and Sarah Lancashire. The children playing Oliver and Dodger give subtle performances, so were obviously directed extremely well.

I did not have any problems with the changes to the narrative and I know the novel well, but in the time constraints of the series, I thought the changes made sense. At first I thought the music surprising but very quickly I felt it suited the style of the story telling.

Very fine effort from the BBC, they are so thorough with period dramas, I can't remember the last time they stuffed one up.

This is a fairly well-made version of an old chestnut. Casting and sets are up to BBC's usual high standards, just the music made me pause sometimes (sort of New Age klezmer). The story has a great flaw: the scenes in Mr. Brownlow's house are dull and uninspired, while the scenes in the orphanage and Fagin's hide-away are bursting with life. It's as if Dickens could only trust the criminal side of the story to be truthful. The lop-sided story is still very moving.

I liked Timothy Spall as Fagin very much; he went far to erase some faint memories of Alec Guinness in the part. Spall is more subtly Jewish than Guinness was. Sarah Lancashire is riotously funny, and quite vicious too, as Mrs. Corny. Julian Rhind-Tutt is appropriately villainous as Monks.

I feel sorry for anyone who makes his first acquaintance with Dickens' classic through this ill-conceived version that tampers irreparably with the original story.

The first mistake was hiring a screenwriter best-known for work on a British soap to write the script. She felt obligated to make it more "hip" by inserting words and dialog that aren't appropriate to the time period, and by completely twisting parts of the plot and some of its main characters. For instance, the comic subplot of Bumble and Corny leaves out some of the best scenes, and instead "sexes up" the Widow Corny. And Oliver himself is changed from a lost innocent into a smart-mouthed punk. (PS - I know that Corny is spelled with an "e" but IMDb's spell- checker keeps changing it.)

The casting doesn't help. Timothy Spall, who is wonderful in almost everything he does, never seems to settle in to the character of Fagin, and the make-up and hair artists make him look like an ugly fat woman most of the time. Nancy has changed color, Bill Sykes is nothing more than a yobbo, not the looming villain so well-portrayed by Oliver Reed in the musical version. Even the reliable Edward Fox turns in a two-dimensional performance as Brownlow.

The music score is also horrendous, jumping from style to style but never anything remotely Victorian. (Electric guitar? Banjo? Steel drums?)

I don't have a problem with making new versions of classics. I also don't have a problem with updating classics, as in WEST SIDE STORY or even Baz Luhrman's ROMEO + JULIET. But what we have in OLIVER TWIST is a warped classic, a hack's idea of making a great plot more palatable for the 21st-century audience. You can change the ambiance or the costumes, but don't give us a new story and claim it's a classic. This type of bilge is running rampant in current British productions (Wuthering Heights, Marple, etc.). Seek out an older version for something that resembles the original, or at least holds the original in high regard. The director and screenwriter for this production obviously see Dickens as raw material to be improved upon. The joke is on them.

Having many successful versions of this immortal Charles Dickens's book, the BBC made in for TV presented as series, the writer Sarah Phelps introduces some slight changes on the original story, as the black character as Nancy, also on Bill Sakes as a remorseful guy, the full length offer enables us know more hidden details if someone hadn't an opportunity to read the book, according Sara the book is too much complex at first reading, sometimes stuck and often hook you again, they made a good job indeed, nearest on the best previous adaptations, for me allowed me learn about the misbegotten Fagin which was splendidly personified by the bulky and remarkable actor Timothy Spall, a role at his size, here ushered more human than others early versions, introducing his religion's roots as true Jewish, revealing multiple layers from the odd Fagin, displaying his chatting with the black bird Ezekiel, funny and weird, the boy William Miller was perfectly cast to play Oliver and Adam Arnold as Artful Dodger staggered us with a haughty acting, Tom Hardy is another high point to share, he is bad as hell, however after his blood boils up hereupon making harshness, afterwards he recovers your mind softy, extraordinary adaptation from BBC that requires to everyone takes a look!!

Resume:

First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8