The opening image of Roman Polanski's adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist is a book-illustration etching that slowly morphs into a live-action shot. That sums up the mood of the entire film, which never pretends to be anything other than a very classy novel adaptation. Polanski is a master filmmaker, however, and he manages to find a fresh approach to the oft-told story.

Oliver Twist is a difficult, sprawling novel. Ronald Harwood, who also worked with Polanski on The Pianist, managed to come up with a script that doesn't feel like a cut-down miniseries. Actually, parts of Oliver Twist aren't that different from The Pianist, as a lone character struggles to survive while on the run. Both films have a bit in common with the director's early life fleeing the Holocaust. Polanski commented to the press at Oliver Twist's world premiere in Prague Sept. 24 that he didn't realize the parallels until he was actually filming.

Polanski's motivation for making the film, he said, was to show his own children something aimed a young audience that wasn't a pure fantasy driven by special effects. He said his children had seen the film and gave it good reviews.

Polanski pointed out one small scene that few people will notice but is typical of the director. Oliver, played by young actor Barney Clark, is called before a magistrate to have his future legally signed over to a creepy chimney sweep. The judge's inkwell is on the wrong side of the desk and in trying to find it he looks up and notices Oliver, who is scared and crying. The judge talks to him and decides against letting the chimney sweep take him. If the inkwell had been placed properly, Oliver's life would have been completely different. Everybody's life, in Polanski's view, is an endless series of such moments.

Some of the main characters are given a different spin in this version of Oliver Twist. Ben Kingsley offers a sympathetic Fagin, the man who takes in street boys and teaches them how to steal handkerchiefs and wallets. In Polanski's version, he is much nicer to the boys than the orphanage staff. The anti-Semitic aspect that some people find in the book has been toned down. It is with Fagin and Artful Dodger, a street boy who is an expert thief, that Oliver finds any semblance of a family life.

The film's true villain is Sykes, played by Jamie Foreman. Usually he is depicted as evil personified, but here Foreman shows a glimmer of goodness — or at least a small sense of humor. It never becomes more than that, but it's enough to make him into more than a one-dimensional character.

Polanski railed against films that depend on special effects, which he said are creating a generation of viewers unable to respond to genuine emotion on the screen. Polanski himself doesn't eschew computer effects — he just uses them differently. Oliver Twist has 300 computer effects, mostly to turn the locations more convincingly into London. The film was shot in Prague's Barrandov Studios and on some Czech locations. One scene is set on what looks suspiciously like Charles Bridge, but without any statues. Another shows an extended London skyline that has a distinctly painted feeling.