Twist

Jacob Tierney – 2003 – Canada

It’s not a literal adaptation of Oliver Twist, but more like an updated retelling of the same basic story; you know, like West Side Story was patterned on Romeo & Juliet.  Even so, I actually enjoyed it more than most straight remakes of the Dickens classic save only David Lean’s.  Joshua Close plays Oliver, a naïve runaway just arrived in New York who falls in with a group of male hustlers.  But the film really belongs to Nick Stahl, turning in another of his patented edgy performances as yet another wired and desperate character; this time the Artful Dodger, known simply as ‘Dodge.’  Here Dodge takes center stage, struggling not only with the dangers of his profession and heroin addiction but also with the family he escaped and the new underground family to which he belongs.  Despite its subject matter, the film is surprisingly low-key, and not the gritty exposé that most every other movie about street life is.  It’s a modest drama driven by character and mood more than plot and sensationalism.