Runtime: 2 hours, 38 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Tom Hooper
Quick Impressions:
I first saw the musical Les Misérables on the stage in London in the summer of 2000. To be honest, it was a slightly disappointing and, at times, bewildering experience. The show seemed very rushed (as if they were trying to pack in a million performances a day) and notably lacking in genuine passion (some actors seemed to sleepwalk through their parts). Basically, the whole event is a blur, though I did take away two lasting memories.
I will never forget the way the actor playing Jean Valjean performed the number “Bring Him Home,” a song I had always fast forwarded through when listening to the Original Cast Recording on my Walkman at home. I don’t remember the actor’s name, but I do remember his unbelievable range and the stunning clarity of the high notes he sang like an angel as he waded through the sewage trying to prevent the wounded Marius from dying. I remember thinking, This is beyond incredible. (Had someone castrated him during the song? How on earth did he get range like that? How did he make that extremely high note sound so hauntingly beautiful?)
The other thing that I will never forget is that while Valjean selflessly risked his life to rescue Marius by dragging him through the sewage, one of my best friends lay dying in an obscure London gutter where my other friend and I had abandoned her so that we could make the curtain of Les Mis.
Okay, she wasn’t actually dying, just slipping into a diabetic coma. No, really, she was just having a familiar flare up of kidney pain, abdominal cramping, and light nausea. When she started to experience these symptoms as the three of us rushed to the theater that evening, we probably should have been considerate friends and helped her get back home. In fact, that’s what we would have done if our other friend had been calling the shots. But I wanted to see Les Mis, and—here’s the funny part—my dear diabetic friend wanted me to see Les Mis as well. She was passionate about theater and everything else and very dramatically ordered us to leave her behind and go to the show and love it.
So we went. And we squeezed into the seats we had purchased cheaply because they had limited leg room, and we listened in amazement as Valjean hit those high notes. And meanwhile, our dear diabetic friend (who had only been in the city for a day) tried to make her way home but got lost and ended up sprawled in agony along the side of a road where a benevolent motorist stopped to help her. She never would have gotten back to our friend’s sister’s house except that she knew a little song our friend’s three-year-old niece had been taught to remember her address. And—mirable dictu!—the woman who stopped to help her turned out to be a realtor who knew London’s confusingly complex neighborhoods like the back of her hand.
“To love another person is to see the face of God.” I like to pretend that Good Samaritan realtor had been an odious, hard-hearted jerk until one fateful performance of Les Mis turned her life around and she began reaching out to help take poor, sick girls off the streets, one languishing tourist at a time.
Seriously, though, Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables is a staggering achievement. What an ambitious follow up to The King’s Speech! Tom Hooper wins acclaim (and an Oscar) for directing a straight forward period drama about a man overcoming a speech impediment in order to embrace his destiny. He then decides to tackle an iconic three-hour musical (really more of an opera) and to do it in a novel way. Instead of recording an Original Cast Album at the beginning and playing pre-recorded tracks while the actors pantomimed their parts, Hooper let each actor set the pace of his own singing and filmed the performers singing and acting at the same time. He then added the full orchestration later.
I say, “Bravo, Tom Hooper!” I have been trying to understand Les Misérables for years, and finally I do! (Back in 1996, my high school drama department performed a forty-five minute, non-musical version of the story with fifteen actors and minimal sets. Though the performances were universally solid, the whole thing was a tiny bit rushed and pretty hard to take in. I’ve listened to various recordings of the songs countless times. And I saw the 1998 non-musical adaptation of the novel. And I’m pretty sure I saw part of a made-for-TV version that involved Eponine walking up and down the stairs a lot.) But until now, I’ve found the “barricades” part of the story very hard to figure out simply because I don’t have a great visual imagination. A real-world setting helps tremendously.
Others may complain, but I can sincerely say this is by far the best and least confusing version of Les Misérables I’ve ever seen.
The Good:
Les Misérables is such a huge story that I think it comes across better on screen than it ever could on stage. What Tom Hooper has done here is amazing! It’s a very bold move to make a nearly three-hour movie where the principal characters do nothing but sing the entire time. And I love his decision to let the actors sing their parts as they acted the scenes. Watching the movie is like having the best seats ever to a Broadway (or West End) show. (It’s hard to get the same experience in a theater. It’s like watching a football game from the stands—and wondering where the yellow line marking the first down is—versus watching at home in HD.)
The entire cast is probably the best imaginable since all of them can both sing and act. (Better singers could have been found, certainly. But this isn’t a stage play. It’s a movie. So you really do need experienced film actors in the leading roles. I’ve always thought that in a musical, a good actor who sings passably (or an excellent actor who sings badly) is better than a magnificent singer who can’t act.)
And there are some other nice touches. Lots of performers from various incarnations of the musical appear as minor characters in the film. The only one of them I really noticed was Colm Wilkinson (the original English Jean Valjean) (and by that I mean English language, as in, he originated the part on the West End and on Broadway—Wilkinson is Irish). In the film, Wilkinson plays the bishop whose remarkable act of mercy changes Valjean’s life. And he’s very, very good as the bishop.
There are bound to be people who don’t like the movie. The thing is, Les Misérables is just not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s very long and extremely singy and over-the-top in its level of emotional self-importance. In our screening, some people did walk out. (My sister and I joked that they probably thought it was taking too long for Wolverine to fight the Gladiator.) But our almost ten-year-old watched every second of the movie and enjoyed it, though he found it very sad.
Tom Hooper isn’t hiding the fact that he’s making Les Misérables, and Les Misérables is what he delivers. It’s very refreshing not to see a famous stage musical butchered on film. (I mean, thank God we don’t have Justin Bieber playing Marius, and half the songs cut out, and all the life and energy drained from the big musical numbers.)
The new song, “Suddenly,” written by the original composers for the movie is very good, too, and makes the Best Song race quite interesting for the first time.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Tom Hooper):
Tom Hooper deserves a nomination for Best Director. The musical has so many distinct parts—that differ wildly in tone—and he brings them all together to create a perfectly harmonious final product. I have never seen the last half of the musical done with such passion and such clarity. And I think it’s a wonderful decision to trust his actors to set their own pace. The song “One Day More” (another of my favorites) can definitely come across as cluttered, ear-splitting, and bewildering, but he handles it perfectly.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Anne Hathaway):
Anne Hathaway’s probably going to win an Oscar for her portrayal of Fantine, and I think she deserves one. She has a lovely singing voice, and the raw passion she brings to the role is incredible. Her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” is the most emotive performance of a song in a movie musical since Jennifer Hudson’s big number in Dream Girls. I’ve heard that to appear sickly and emaciated, Hathaway ate dry oatmeal. That sounds unpleasant and probably also unnecessary since her passion overwhelms her appearance. What she looks like doesn’t matter (though she did make many physical sacrifices, aiming for realism). I feel like I understand the suffering of Fantine better now that I’ve watched Hathaway perform her song. I hope she does win an Oscar. She’s really good.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Hugh Jackman):
Hugh Jackman may not win an Oscar (though he always could), but if he doesn’t get at least a nomination for Best Actor it will be a terrible injustice. For sheer endurance, he ought to win something. His transformation over the course of the movie is amazing. It’s like how much he has changed (physically, emotionally, spiritually) really doesn’t hit you until the end. (At least, that was my experience).
The song of his turmoil after the bishop’s gift seems to take forever, but his performance is magnificent. He’s so tormented and confused here, and he really looks the part, too. (He also did a lot to prepare. I can’t remember exactly what. I like to imagine him bench pressing the newly waifish Anne Hathaway and stealing her meager dinner of dried oatmeal, but that’s probably not his secret.)
Jackman also sneaks a lot of comedy into his performance. He’s equally good in the big, stagey parts and the small, intimate moments. He doesn’t sing as well as the guy I heard as Jean Valjean on stage. (I can’t find the program. I’ve been trying to figure out his name. I think it must have been Simon Bowman.) Still, Jackman has a fantastic voice and amazing stage presence. If people feel reluctant to give Daniel Day-Lewis a third Oscar, he may end up winning. (But it’s been my experience that the Academy would vote to give Day-Lewis every Oscar if only they could, so we’ll see.)
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Samantha Barks):
When I was in high school and college, Eponine was the part everybody talked about the most. (Well, Eponine and the Thénardiers.) Everybody loved Eponine, felt for Eponine, wanted to play Eponine, wanted to sing her songs as solos. (Maybe that’s because her part is the best fit for someone in high school or college. Maybe, too, it’s because Marius and Cosette inadvertently make Eponine appear so attractive and non-annoying.)
Samantha Barks seemed okay at first, and then gradually seemed better and better and better. She has a lovely voice, and lovely eyes, and is a lovely girl. (She should play Eliza Doolittle!) She brings such warmth and humanity and realism to Eponine, qualities sadly lacking in Marius and Cosette. (I’m not blaming the actors. The characters just aren’t easy to like.)
When I got home, I found out that when Samantha Barks was cast, she was playing Nancy on stage in a production of Oliver! Um, why was I not notified sooner and given a plane ticket to England?
I like the way Barks performs both her songs, but I really liked the way she played the scene by the gate of Valjean’s house.
The Other Performances:
Eddie Redmayne (whom I really liked in My Week with Marilyn) starts off a bit weak, but gets better as he goes on as Marius. (In fact, maybe what I noticed was just a change in the character, matured by his sobering experiences.) He has a nice voice, and he’s very good singing “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”
Far better than Redmayne, however, is the guy playing Enjorlas, a part I’ve never given a second thought about before. That guy is phenomenal. His name is Aaron Tveit, and he really elevates the part because he’s very good at doing a lot with his face. He has tremendous energy and intensity, and he’s by far the most interesting of the would-be revolutionaries (apart from Gavroche).
I’ve heard many complaints about Russell Crowe’s singing (most of them from my sister who was watching with me) and I’ll admit he doesn’t sing the part nearly as well as Roger Allam or Terrence Mann. But actually, I liked his performance. He plays it small. Definitely he’s giving us a film Javert, not a stage Javert. But I thought his interpretation of Javert made the character make more sense (and seem more sympathetic) than he ever has before, as far as I’m concerned. His fate makes much more sense given Crowe’s portrayal and doesn’t seem to come out of left field. Basically, Crowe humanizes the character. (Now some people may think that’s a bad thing since there’s clearly a lot of moral allegory going on in Les Mis, but it’s kind of hard to watch a movie about a guy who’s just a piece of moral allegory.)
I like Amanda Seyfried. She’s a passable actress and a passable singer, and that’s a winning combination, especially because she has enormous blue eyes and pretty blonde hair. She’s lovely and sweet as the innocent, pure-hearted Cosette, and she manages her (incredibly difficult songs) very well. I think Cosette has some of the hardest songs to sing in the entire musical, and Seyfried has a pretty, clear voice. But you don’t get the same intensity from
Seyfried that you get from Hathaway or even Barks (and that’s really because the character just doesn’t allow for that).
The little girl who plays Cosette is starkly beautiful, too, and a talented young actress. Her name is Isabelle Allen.
Best Action Sequence:
The most exciting part, I think, is Valjean dragging Marius through the sewers, and the two confrontations he faces on the way.
Our almost ten-year-old enjoyed the battle scenes on the barricades the most, he says.
As an adult who was once a child obsessed with the movie Oliver!, I also loved all the screentime given to the cheeky, spirited Gavroche (very charmingly played by Daniel Huttlestone), and enjoyed the way he moved through the streets, in and out of carriages and all over town.
Funniest Scene/Best Joke:
“Master of the House” is one of my favorite songs from Les Mis (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone there), and I thought this movie did that number particularly well. (Maybe the stage version is better when you’re not sitting up in the cheap seats, of course, but I’ve never seen it does this well.)
Casting Sacha Baron and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thénardiers seemed like the obvious choice, and both of them deliver fantastic performances and practically steal the movie. Our audience loved them. And one of Madame Thénardier’s lines in her first conversation with Cosette made my sister and me crack up at the same instant. (Obviously we’re related. Nobody else laughed as loud as we did.) Played perfectly, Madame Thénardier is not a very nice person.
I love Helena Bonham Carter’s eyes. Nobody else has eyes quite like that (except the friend we left to die in the gutter. Hers were remarkably similar). She and Sacha Baron Cohen have wonderful comedic chemistry together, and Hugh Jackman gets in on the fun himself. One nice thing about a film versus a stage show—you can see in great detail the expression on each person’s face, so a lot can be done with the eyes.
Helena Bonham Carter is a treasure of the silver screen whom we all take for granted. One day, she won’t be around anymore to play all the zany parts we expect her to play, and we’ll realize too late that we should have given her more accolades while we still had the chance.
Best Scene Visually:
Apparently Cosette is so lovely that she’s perpetually surrounded by a chorus of luminous, glow-in-the-dark butterflies, kind of like Cinderella. The scene where Marius and Cosette meet at the gate is lovely but a little weird.
What I liked best was the blood running through the streets of Paris like so much spilled red wine. That makes me think fondly of Charles Dickens.
The last big moment with Enjolras is nice, too.
Best Scene:
By far, the most powerful scene in the movie is the ending which is spectacular in this version. I’ve seen Les Misérables before, but I feel like I finally get the point of the whole thing and understand why some people find it so moving. Even though the entire production was good, I kept some distance between myself and what was happening on screen—until the ending. I was genuinely moved by the ending which made all the disparate elements of the story come together to create a powerful and focused message.
The Negatives:
The biggest weakness of the story is that Marius and the (barely) adult Cosette are so annoying. Their love story is just not very believable and definitely not moving to the audience. It’s not their fault. The audience has been watching wretched people with good intentions being raped and killed and falsely imprisoned. After all that tragic and character-building suffering has dominated the screen, it’s very hard to care much about two teenagers who are both terribly rich and pretty and innocent and obsessed with one another. It’s like that in Oliver Twist, too. The virtuous innocents are always the least interesting.
Watching Eponine watch them sing together actually made several of us laugh. It’s not that Eponine’s plight is funny, but her reaction to their passion seems so human and makes them seem even more whispy and ridiculous.
Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t want Cosette to be ugly or vicious. And Marius does improve a little with time. It’s just that their love story is the least compelling part of the story to the audience and the most compelling to all the other characters, which makes the musical a little imbalanced. But that’s not the fault of Hooper’s production. That’s just Les Misérables.
People who have seen the show on stage from good seats thousands of times will probably find much not to like. And people who accidentally get dragged to the movie and hate singing will probably wish to go the way of Javert before the sprawling, singing spectacle is finally over. There are parts that seem slow. The movie is long. The singing is incessant. And the sentimentality is flowing like an endless tidal wave of blood in the streets. But you certainly can’t watch all this and complain that Les Misérables isn’t very aptly titled.
But personally, I don’t have any more complaints. (Except that Javert’s last moment is conspicuously loud.)
Overall:
If you like Les Misérables, of course, you’ll like Tom Hooper’s ambitious film version of the immensely popular stage musical. If you don’t like Les Misérables, you probably should not see this movie (unless you’ve confessed to one of those priests who enjoys creative penance and the fate of your soul depends on you watching it). Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Samantha Barks are all marvelous, and the rest of the cast is pretty great, too. (If you are taking children, be warned that the terrible things that happen to Anne Hathaway are pretty graphic and disturbing in the film version.)