Worth: $4.00
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Cast:
Raff Law, Michael Caine, Lena Headey, Rita Ora, Franz Drameh, Sophie Simnett, David Walliams, Noel Clarke
Intro:
The direction feels lazy, the dialogue is so overwrought you could make a gate out of it, and dear old Michael Caine is phoning it in so badly it hurts.
In 1838, Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist was published. Since then, the progress of a young parish boy has influenced numerous adaptations. Perhaps the most successful is Oliver!, the 1968 musical adaptation that brought ‘Food Glorious Food’ to the masses and dared to ask the question, ‘Where Is Love?’ Yes, it won 6 Oscars, but you know what it didn’t have the guts to include? Parkour. That’s right, the art of free running. Enter Twist, a modern interpretation from director Martin Owen (Let’s Be Evil) and written by nearly enough people to start your own soccer team.
Oliver, or Twist to his friends, is a free-running graffiti artist living hand to mouth on the rooves of London’s many tall buildings. Played by Raff Law, Twist brings the audience up to speed, advising that his story is not all ‘singing and dancing’. You hear that, Lionel Bart? Our 20-something scamp originally came from a loving home where he was cared for by his artistic mother. There are signs that Twist is trying to do something less than bombastic in a scene that sees mother and son looking at Millais’ painting of Ophelia. Twist’s mother talks about how she sees hope and a woman escaping; a few scenes later, young Twist is sleeping next to her grave. It’s a moment of genuine poetry. However, it doesn’t involve jumping over gaps and doing a little spin, so the movie quickly moves us on.
Running from the police, the now grown Twist is taken in by Fagin (Michael Caine) and his den of thieves, including Dodge (Rita Ora), Batesey (Franz Drameh) and Red AKA Nancy (Sophie Simnett), who makes the young man all gooey-eyed. Being able to scale tall buildings turns out to be a talent Fagin is looking for as he tries to take down snobbish art dealer, Losberne (David Walliams). Of course, this wouldn’t be Oliver Twist without Sykes, and it’s a pleasure to see Lena Headey taking up the helm as the murderous crim looking for her share of the scam.
When watching Twist, it’s easy for the mind to wander to another modern adaptation of classic literature, Sherlock. For all its Season 4 faults, the BBC show felt like a genuinely lived-in world; Twist feels every bit of its design by committee. Its nods to the original story land poorly. If it’s not running past a copy of Oliver Twist to remind you of the novel, it’s Sykes beating Twist before saying, ‘The question is, do you want some more?’
Staying on the subject of Sykes, in this adaptation, her relationship with Nancy/Red remains. Being queer is undoubtedly not an issue. It’s far better than being a queer coded Disney bad guy. However, her relationship with Red is used as a rug pull in the final third to break Twist’s little heart. And in doing so, Twist inadvertently sets up its hero as a cishet white knight coming to save Red from the predatory gays and feeding into a Daily Mail narrative. It just feels problematic, as if the creators have tried so hard to modernise Oliver Twist they didn’t think about the implications.
Not that this is the film’s only creative issue. The direction feels lazy, the dialogue is so overwrought you could make a gate out of it, and dear old Michael Caine is phoning it in so badly it hurts. This is Guy Ritchie for people who found Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels scary. There’s potential for a modern interpretation of Dickens out there, but Twist is certainly not it.
