Critical Reception
The film received generally positive reviews. It has a 'fresh' 60 percent score on movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus that 'Polanski's version of Dickens' classic won't have audiences asking for more because while polished and directed with skill, the movie's a very impersonal experience.' Review aggregate website Metacritic further assigned the film a score of 65, signifying 'generally favorable reviews.'
A. O. Scott of the New York Times called it a "bracingly old-fashioned" film that "does not embalm its source with fussy reverence" but "rediscovers its true and enduring vitality." He added, "the look of the movie... is consistent with its interpretation of Dickens's worldview, which could be plenty grim but which never succumbed to despair. There is just enough light, enough grace, enough beauty, to penetrate the gloom and suggest the possibility of redemption. The script... is at once efficient and ornate, capturing Dickens's narrative dexterity and his ear for the idioms of English speech."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was similarly positive; he lauded the film as "visually exact and detailed without being too picturesque." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle praised it as a "grounded and unusually matter-of-fact adaptation," continuing, "Polanski does justice to Dickens' moral universe, in which the motives and worldview of even the worst people are made comprehensible."
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly graded the film B+ and commented, "On the face of it, Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist is in the tradition of every faithful Oliver Twist ever filmed — a photogenic, straightforward, CliffsNotes staging of Charles Dickens' harrowing story... 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."
However, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film two out of four stars, calling it "drab and unfeeling" while "lacking the Polanski stamp." He further felt Barney Clark's performance as Oliver was "bereft of personality." Todd McCarthy of Variety echoed Travers' sentiments about Clark, labelling him "disappointingly wan and unengaging," while writing that the film was "conventional, straighforward" and "a respectable literary adaptation, but dramatic urgency and intriguing undercurrents."
In the UK press, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian opined that while " Oliver Twist does not flag or lose its way and is always watchable, the book's original power and force have not been rediscovered." Philip French of The Observer wrote that the film was "generally disappointing, though by no means badly acted," and alleged that it lacked "any serious point of view about individuality, society, community."
Read more about this topic: Oliver Twist (2005 Film)
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