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Rating:  -
Twist, the gay subculture version of Dickens' classic Oliver Twist, is a loose adaptation updated for the 21st century. It is VERY dark, in my opinion, depressing--devoid of the hope for young Oliver and Dodge that exists in the original. I found it interesting mainly from the standpoint of a different take. It seemed to me that several of the characters were too extreme--Oliver was too naive and innocent (unbelievably so) making the jump to hustler too easily for his initial persona; Dodge may have been spot-on, but had too much baggage and too many issues to really identify with him; Nancy was well-played with a good balance of pity and compassion; Fagin was not nearly developed enough to understand him; and Bill, fro either frustrating and/or brilliant reasons, is never seen! If it's your cup of tea, it's a renter, not a buyer.
Rating:  -
"Twist"
Something New on Oliver
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
"Twist" is a retelling of the Charles Dickens's classic "Oliver Twist". It is updated to the modern age and moved out of the poor house and onto the streets of Vancouver and this time it is told from Dodge's (Artful Dodger) point of view. Oliver, whose beauty is all consuming, becomes a pawn for a down-and-out young man (Dodge) who takes him under his wing and teaches him about drugs and prostitution. As Oliver loses his innocence, both he and Dodge confront their demons.
This is an actor's movie. They guide us through a world where there are no happy endings and the movie shows us how the youth of today find only loneliness in the sex industry as well as how lonely it is living on the streets. Most people are probably not aware of what it is like to be homeless and have to depend upon the streets for comfort and solace. This indeed could influence those who see this film. It touches many issues that are rarely depicted on the screen and it does so in a moving way. The production is not what it should be but the acting is absolutely incredible. Nick Stahl as Dodge narrates the sad story without throwing it in the face of the viewer. He does so with compassion. And as good as the acting is, the cinemaphotography is just as good. It is a bleak subject and is filmed with that bleakness. In many ways it is a gut wrenching look at street life.
Dickens was the author who wanted to change society by making people aware of the problems of the working class, His good intentions went awry when he realized that he had to tack happy endings on to his books. "Twist" is an attempt to be more Dickensian than Dickens and give the story the kind of ending it should have had. The director, Joseph Tierney, changed the story to make it into a modern adaptation. Fagin's boys are not pickpockets but hustlers who work for someone named Bill who is never seen in the film. Dodge is a hopeless wreck of a human and we are to understand that what happened to him to put him on the streets in the first place will keep him there until his dying day. Since we know that sometimes life has no happy endings, we know better than to hope for one here.
There are several scenes that are hard to watch but one particular scene stays with me and be warned--this is a spoiler. Dodge's older brother seeks him out and we have no idea what his motives are. We have been led to believe that the reason Dodge left home in the first place was because he had been abused by his father and he has blamed his brother for not coming to his aid. His brother seems to be asking for forgiveness of some kind but he seems cold and harsh and mean saying that he feels he made the right decision by trying to secure a good position for himself and by doing so had to let his brother down. He says he plans to get married and get an advanced degree and have a life with children and everything else he wants. Dodge, he says, "will probably lay face down on a street having OD'd". He knew that Dodge was a hustler and after he offers him a good sum of money and orders him to "Show me what you can do". Dodge did not understand at first but he realized what his brother meant and cries out to him, "Why are you doing this to me?". It is heartbreaking to watch when Dodge's brother forces him to have oral sex in order to get the money. Dodge has no choice but to comply because he knows that Bill will kill him if he comes home again without money.
"Twist" is a powerful film with an unhappy ending to top it off. This is not the "Oliver Twist" that I read. As it balances the thin lie between reality and sickness in today's culture, it is a depiction of a fact of life that I hope none of us ever have to know.
Rating:  -
I picked this up in the DVD store and it had a few labels on the front saying "official selection from such and such film festival". I read the back and it said it was a new take on the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist. Well, let me tell you that Dickens himself would be totally offended by this rubbish.
Basically the film focuses on a bunch of young gay hustlers who don't know where their lives are heading. One is hooked on herion, while the new recruit just needs someone to love him. The film moves too slowly for its own good, and at the end of the film I cared very little for any of the characters.
This film is one of those annoying films that tries to be so much more than what it is. There are better films out there that tackle these sorts of issues.
Rating: -
This unusual adaptation of Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist is a gritty, yet touching story, not unlike the original. It takes place in a small Canadian town and revolves around a gruop of young male prostitutes. The characters though not entirely three-dimensional, do well in creating a sense of danger and desperation. Nick Stahl is as usual very convincing and his portrayal of Dodger is rather moving. It's a slow paced thriller with nice little plot twists ;-)
Rating: -
At first when you read the description of this film, you think to yourself, "Wow, this is really a unique updating of the Charles Dickens story: Oliver Twist!" Then when you watch it, you realize that it really isn't terribly unique or ingenious - and that's a compliment. That the producers/director have updated Oliver Twist for the 21st century is really a film update that was due. HOWEVER, even Nick Stahl's emotional and finely tuned performance as the Artful "Dodger" cannot save this film from itself.
With Roman Polanski having just put out arguably the most banal version of Oliver Twist, this "Twist" is a welcome diversion. It is a shame, then, that the pathos and feeling of uncomfortable doom does not permiate this film more than it does.
This Oliver Twist has Fagin as a pimp for a group of desperate boys who are gay for pay. Bill Sykes is apparently the mastermind behind the whole thing. Dodger is the best of the boys and recruits young gay runaway Oliver into the business. Oliver falls in love with Dodger only to be repeatedly rebuffed by the "straight" Dodger.
We, as the artful "Dodger" make far too many trips to the sad little diner where Nancy works where little happens and the trips don't drive the story. There are too many character entrances into Fagin's warehouse, rather than letting us get to know its eccentricities and feel its despair.
Who is Charlie - we see him - we talk to him - we even know that he identifies as a straight boy, though he is gay for pay. But we don't know him or any of his backstory.
Frankly, we don't know any of the boys in this film too well. Oh, we learn about Oliver - who is quite well played by Joshua Close; and we eventually learn about Dodger, but these are the only two boys we get to really know.
That Bill Sykes is an unseen presence is an interesting feature of the film, but quite frankly I never felt the evilness that this man was supposed to represent. In fact, Fagin (Gary Farmer) comes off more evil than Sykes - and Mr. Farmer, a very large portly man seems more of a benevolent former Hells Angel than anything else.
Nancy supplies heroin to the boys, but this is not really played to its full potential. It should be Fagin and Nancy injecting the boys with heroin to keep them compliant - THAT would make these characters more sinister. It would also have made Nancy all the more redeemable when she tries to help Oliver. Instead it's the boys themselves who shoot up, but infrequently and randomly, coming off more as victims of their own addiction rather than victims of their circumstances.
The filmmakers have the johns in this film take the boys off to nice decent looking places and/or treat them kindly. It's as if we should be pleased for the boys as they do their tricking. NO! Why not have some of the john's be decent, but also show how some of them beat the daylights out of the boys or stiff them for their money while they drag them to seedy hotels or dirty alleys? Where's the ever present threat of disease that the boys face? Where's the reality that many of them ARE diseased? This aspect of their frightening lives is too homoginized for my belief.
The most believable of the horrible acts comes at the end of this film where Dodger is subjected to a cruelty that he thought he'd left when he ran away from home. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit in with the emotion of his brother in the scene. Is it painful for the brother? Apparently. Then why does he do it? Is he trying to teach his brother a lesson? Is he doing it because he wants to humiliate Dodger? It doesn't play with the dialogue that has gone before. However, the subsequent scene with Dodger is fitting with what has just transpired with his brother. I believe Dodger is actually in the throes of death (by his own hand) when the climactic scene with Bill Sykes takes place, but is not apparent.
The full resolution of the film is ultimately cheap - a cop out. We see Oliver as Dodger, demonstrating that he has been so corrupted that he is now forced to become as emotionally detached as Dodger. But how can this be? It doesn't fit with his character, nor does it make practical sense. All of the characters who would keep him in this life have died. The realization of his character's birth and being turned away as a result of it would more than likely keep Oliver in the life, but not in the sad state that Fagin and Sykes kept the boys.
I wanted to like this film far more than I did. It's an interesting diversion. However, I don't think this film was any where near the desolate dipiction that such an update deserves. It should be a far more horrifying dipiction than the producers/director presented. Twist could have been a truly visceral experience, and it copped out.
Worth a viewing, but nothing nearly as dramatic or emotionally involving as some reviewers (whom I assume are much younger than myself) have written that it is.
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