Reception
The film received mixed to generally positive reviews, holding a 61% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 143 reviews, averaging 6.3/10. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads: "Polanski's version of Dickens' classic won't have audiences asking for more because while polished and directed with skill, the movie's a very impersonal experience." On Metacritic the film scored 65/100. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
In his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott called it a "bracingly old-fashioned" film that "does not embalm its source with fussy reverence" but "rediscovers its true and enduring vitality." He added: "The look of the movie [...] is consistent with its interpretation of Dickens's worldview, which could be plenty grim but which never succumbed to despair. There is just enough light, enough grace, enough beauty, to penetrate the gloom and suggest the possibility of redemption. The script [...] is at once efficient and ornate, capturing Dickens's narrative dexterity and his ear for the idioms of English speech."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was similarly positive, calling the film "visually exact and detailed without being too picturesque." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle praised it as a "grounded and unusually matter-of-fact adaptation", continuing: "Polanski does justice to Dickens' moral universe, in which the motives and worldview of even the worst people are made comprehensible."
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a grade of B+ and commented: "On the face of it, Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist is in the tradition of every faithful Oliver Twist ever filmed—a photogenic, straightforward, CliffsNotes staging of Charles Dickens' harrowing story [...] Yet precisely because this is by Roman Polanski, it's irresistible to read his sorrowful and seemingly classical take [...] as something much more personal and poignant."
However, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film two out of four stars, calling it "drab and unfeeling" and lacking the Polanski stamp; he further felt Barney Clark's performance as Oliver was "bereft of personality". Todd McCarthy of Variety echoed Travers' concerns about Clark, labelling him "disappointingly wan and unengaging", while writing that the film was "conventional, straightforward [...] a respectable literary adaptation, but [lacking] dramatic urgency and intriguing undercurrents".
In the British press, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian opined that while "[Polanski's] Oliver Twist does not flag or lose its way and is always watchable, the book's original power and force have not been rediscovered." Philip French of The Observer wrote that the film was "generally disappointing, though by no means badly acted", and alleged that it lacked "any serious point of view about individuality, society, community".
Box office-wise, the film opened in the U.S. in only five theatres and made $68,447 in its opening weekend. The film opened on 547 screens in France and finished at number two at the box office behind Corpse Bride with an opening five-day gross of $2.3 million. It grossed $42.6 million worldwide—substantially below its $60 million budget.
