Oliver Twist

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Altogether remarkable, a near-masterpiece.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A grounded and unusually matter-of-fact adaptation.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is that rare movie version of a great novel in which watching IS reading.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Polanski's film is visually exact and detailed without being too picturesque. This is not Ye Olde London, but Ye Harrowing London, teeming with life and dispute.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Despite the movie's several shortcomings, it leaves us sated. That's because, unlike Oliver's workhouse, it does give "some more" - more emotional breadth, more hardscrabble farce, and more haunting drama.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Yet precisely because this is by Roman Polanski, it's irresistible to read his sorrowful and seemingly classical take, from a filmmaker known as much for the schisms in his personal history as for the lurches in his work, as something much more personal and poignant.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

With tact and enthusiasm, Mr. Polanski grabs hold of a great book and rediscovers its true and enduring vitality.

Premiere Ryan Devlin

It's worth noting that Oliver Twist will likely be no Harry Potter at the box office, due in no small part to a lack of bombastic special effects and supernatural subplots, yet it's nearly as entertaining, even without the wizardry.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Dark, dank and violent, filled with terrifying scenes in which exploited children are beaten, shot or starving to death. In other words, it's just as Dickens wrote.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The movie about literature's luckiest orphan may teem with children, but it is not for them.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie is 23 minutes longer than the Lean version, yet it somehow seems much less evocative of the novel's immense scope and texture. And its Cockney accents are such a strain to understand that as much as a third of the dialogue is indecipherable.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Polanski honors the craft of classical storytelling and never flinches from the book's melodramatic extremes in portraying the horrors of poverty.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Without Nancy and her demon lover, Polanski's Oliver Twist feels handsome, steady, and respectful; it has that touch of mummification which wins awards. But Dickens had murder in mind--women killed for their kindness, children for lack of food--and he wanted us to howl and hyperventilate. He asked for more.

Slate David Edelstein

The most effective counterweight to Polanski's fatalism is young Barney Clark, whose Oliver--although given to few words--is unshakably alive and responsive, even as he's being buffeted violently by forces beyond his control.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Polanski's version, though handsomely realized, is a fairly conventional rendering of the novel that probably won't be counted among his best films.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A respectable literary adaptation but lacks dramatic urgency and intriguing undercurrents.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Accomplished if lacking in urgency, this Oliver Twist (scripted by Ronald Harwood, who also wrote "The Pianist") showcases Polanski's proven gift for Dickensian caricature.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

And that ultimately may be the problem with the Polanski version: by bringing Oliver forward, you push the drama backward.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

As in "The Pianist," Polanski is content to allow the film's narrative to evoke the emotions he wishes his audience to experience.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The result is an expertly made, very watchable film that's curiously lacking in impact. By Polanski standards that has to be a disappointment.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

As an introduction to the story for someone with no previous exposure to Oliver Twist, Polanski's movie is adequate.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Dickens was a sentimentalist, but even his happy endings are more nuanced than Polanski's brutal anti-sentimentalism.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

So what's surprising here isn't Polanski's choice of material but his utter failure to put any distinctive stamp on it.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Filming on locations in Prague and in various Czech locations serving as London and the English countryside, the director delivers Dickens' tale with some style. The style, however, is that of a more cautious artist than Polanski is at his best.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Turns out to be far more interesting for grown-ups (the movie is probably too long, and too much, for little kids anyway).

USA Today Mike Clark

The big surprise in Polanski's Oliver is the lack of a discernible personal stamp, especially from such a directorial master of the macabre.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The biggest surprise in Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist is that there are no surprises.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

None of the actors completely satisfies.

Dallas Observer Staff (Not credited)

A disappointingly flat, disjointed affair.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's unlikely audiences will be echoing a starving Oliver's most famous line: "Please, sir, I want some more."

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Two dramatic problems beset Roman Polanski's darkly handsome new film of the Dickens novel. The boy is as passive as ever, and bleak in the bargain -- instead of glowing like the Oliver of the musical, he takes light in -- while Ben Kingsley's Fagin and Jamie Foreman's Bill Sikes manage to make villainy a bit of a bore.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Kingsley seems determined to rescue this old chestnut of a character from Jewish stereotypes, but to what end? Oliver's boyhood has become worse than Dickensian - it's bland.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Kingsley is one of very few lively things about Polanski's plodding, by-the-numbers Oliver Twist. And in this dreary setting, he comes across more as a desperate clown than a saving grace, which makes it all the more awkward that no one else is clowning along with him.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Lacking energy and pace and enslaved by a ghastly score, this tepid movie left me longing alternately for David Lean's thrillingly grim 1948 masterpiece, and Carol Reed's chipper 1968 sing-along, with pretty tunes by Lionel Bart.

Film Threat Phil Hall

Handsomely produced but emotionally inert offering.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The fact that there's nothing wrong with it -- that there's nary a scenic detail or scrap of dialogue or performance that isn't utterly on the nose -- is precisely what's wrong with it.