Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist to demonstrate that the industrial revolution was producing orphan children while parents were being worked to death in factories, such that unsavory characters recruited the orphans to a life of petty theft in which they had discipline, room, board, companionship, and gin. The film Twist, directed and written by Jacob Tierney, cleverly attempts to modernize the story to contemporary Toronto, where the family conflicts of the postindustrial society have created teenage runaways, often after being sexually abused in the home. They become prostitutes who are managed, housed, and fed food and heroin by their pimp, Fagin (played by Gary Farmer). Rather than focusing on Oliver (played by Joshua Close), who has recently escaped from foster parents, the film's attention is on Dodge (played by Nick Stahl), who turns not to be a very artful dodger. The prostitutes not only are supposed to surrender their earnings to their pimp but also must recruit other homeless youth as prostitutes. Dodge, thus, finds seventeen-year-old Oliver, who as a fresh face catches the eye of a john regular named the Senator (played by Stephen McHattie). Although the Senator appears to promise a new foster home for Oliver, the Senator rebuffs him when he knocks on his door one night. Oliver is also rebuffed when he tries to become Dodge's lover. But much of the film consists of interaction between Dodge and David (played by Tygh Tunyan), his older brother, who wants to save Dodge from the degradation of his heroin habit and virtual slavery under Fagin's control, though he offers nothing specific and presumably did not defend him when his father abused him. Although Dodge refuses to be saved, he needs money, so he begs for cash (first $300 and then $400) from David, who on the second occasion shocks Dodge by demanding a blowjob. The ending proves that even Fagin is under the thumb of crimelord Bill Sykes, who never appears on the screen. The title Twist, thus, has a double or triple meaning. As a noir film, filmviewers should expect grays and blacks rather than the full spectrum of colors in the cinematography, and there will be no Daddy Warbucks to provide a happy ending.  MH

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Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens

Abandoned at an early age, Oliver Twist is forced to live in a dark and dismal London workhouse lorded over by awful Mr. Bumble who cheats the boys of their meager rations! Desperate but determined, Oliver makes his escape. But what he discovers in the harsh streets of London's underworld makes the workhouse look like a picnic.