My Oliver Twist obsession turns to addiction.

Every since I saw Oliver Twist performed at the Flynn last weekend, I've been on an Oliver Twist kick. That's what I do--when I find something that I like, I become obsessed. This week it's Oliver Twist, and next week it will probably be the Academy Award results or I am Number Four after I see it with my father on Wednesday. Anyway, my recent obsession with Oliver Twist led me onto Netflix (which I also just started subscribing to and am also pretty smitten about), where I stumbled upon a little film called Twist, which was a modern day retelling of the classic tale set in Toronto. If you think this sounds interesting, stop thinking that immediately, because the novelty wears off well before the film ends.

The characters all remain generally the same--you've got the Artful Dodger, now just Dodge, who finds Oliver on the side of the street and offers to take him in (for a price, of course). There's Fagin, who in this story plays the pimp to the younger men's hustlers and junkies, Nancy, who works in the local diner, and her husband, Fagin's boss, Bill Sykes, who is never shown in the film, but whose presence is always looming. The difference lies in the subject matter. In case you didn't quite catch it, this story depicts the boys (young men, rather) as hustlers and Dodge as a heroin addict, who Oliver is completely taken with immediately despite his cruelty and emotional absence.

The issue with the film is that you don't care. Dodge, the character that the story follows, is despicable. He's mean, violent, and manipulative without the benefit of having charisma or a single positive trait to gain your sympathy. The only positive trait he has is that he's played by Nick Stahl, who would give a great performance just standing there. Even that isn't enough. Nancy is a pathetic excuse for a woman and the audience can't understand why she won't leave Bill because we don't see him to tell if he has a positive trait or not. Fagin is just Bill's puppet and Oliver is just Dodge's. All of the characters only behave and exist because of their fear of what Bill will do to them if they rebel, but the audience is never brought into that sense of fear.

And then there's ending, which I won't ruin for anyone who may want to catch out this film just for the laughs. But I will say that it's like the filmmaker (Jacob Tierney wrote and directed it) didn't know how else to end it so he threw in every dramatic stereotypical element that makes up a film and called it a day. This is definitely a case of when subtlety may have been the better choice.