Les Miserables Film Review

I will preface this review by stating that Les Miserables is very dear to my heart, and has been for years.  I have read the book and seen the musical and sung the songs in my bedroom hundreds of times over.  This makes me a tough audience, but with millions of fans worldwide similarly obsessed with the story/music/stageshow, I cannot help but think I am also the target audience.  The film makers will have known from the beginning that criticism would be opinionated and detail-oriented.

With my cards firmly on display, I will now exclaim THE FILM IS BRILLIANT.  I really enjoyed it.  It is faithful to the book and the musical, but clearly establishes its own world and rules.  Only on film is the viewer rewarded with sweeping lansdscapes, intricate sets, extreme close-ups, and realistically bad teeth. The initial grit, though, soon gives way to favour a style that could be described as polished candour.  It seems a necessary concession in the walking the fine line between high stakes and high camp.  I applaud Tom Hooper and the Les Mis team for getting the tone just right.  So with a definite tick in the box labelled 'style', we can examine the 'substance'.  This job was wisely left to the performers, and I felt each was given much freedom to create their own character and musical styling...to mixed results.

  

There are a lot of challenging roles in Les Miserables and the cast do an excellent job.  Well...Russell Crowe doesn't, but I will come back to that.  Hugh Jackman's broad shoulders are proven equal to the task of carrying this gargantuan tale, and he receives help in the first half (ish) of the film from Anne Hathaway.  Jackman's first major musical moment is Valjean's Soliloquy, and he sets the bar high.  In fact, in my opinion it is a bar he never quite reaches again, but he continues to fascinate as his character reinvents himself as often as Madonna.  Hathaway, meanwhile, is a guileless Fantine and she serves the role well – but it just never struck me as Oscar-worthy (like Madonna).  Sorry Annie.  Jackman and Hathaway both spend a lot of time singing in speech quality, or coming off-voice entirely.  It is a shame, when both voices are truly fine ones.  The result of this is that the music falls out of the singing.  As far as musicals go, it was beginning to feel rather unmusical...and then...Suddenly...and then...we fast forward nine years to a time when vocal quality is no longer sacrificed to achieve (debatably) greater emotional truth!  

The leaders of this revolution are Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks and Amanda Seyfried.  The young quartet give a masterclass in singing through a phrase from beginning to end, and demonstrate that in doing so the acting need not suffer.  From this point the film flies by, shifting focus to place Marius as our protagonist.  Eddie Redmayne gives us a dignified, charming imp and for the first time in musical theatre history the audience understands what Eponine sees in him.  Marius' distinctly different relationships with Enjolras, Eponine, Cosette, and eventually Valjean make him an interesting man to watch, and I was on his side every step of the way, even when the guns come out (and I'm a peace-loving hippie).  In the past, many Les Mis fans have been of the view that the insipid Marius and Cosette deserve each other, and he really is not worthy of Eponine, who is better off on her own (pretending he's beside her).  Now Redmayne gives us a Marius who treats Eponine like a sister (oh, that's why he doesn't get jiggy with her).  Now Seyfried's Cosette is a clear-headed beauty with a ringing voice and eyes to drown in.  Now their connection has me believing they belong together. 

With the film now firmly focused on the love story, I was unsurprised to learn that the show's most interesting song was cut.  Thenardier's atheistic wail makes such a great counterpoint to Valjean's tortured piousness and Javert's staunch legalism.  In this time of Hitchens, Dawkins and atheist enthusiasm, I feel the song would resonate very well.  Alas.  This cut disappoints me greatly, but it's the only one that does.  I can now only hope for a DVD extra of Sacha Baron Cohen singing Dog Eats Dog.  I'd love to see what he could do with it! 

It must now be time to lament the casting decision that permitted Russell Crowe to sing at us.  It is not that he cannot sing, but he does this and Javert does this.  When Crowe sings in his higher register, he sounds like his nose is blocked.  There are other problems, like the fact that he does not give any dramatic weight to some really big moments (like his vow to catch Valjean at any cost) but mostly HE SOUNDS LIKE HIS NOSE IS BLOCKED.

For the record, Helena Bonham Carter was everything I wished she would be and more, while Baron Cohen  made me lol more than once.

I could not quite get my head around the finale reprise of Do you Hear the People Sing? but I'm hoping it makes more sense the next time I watch it.  And I have the feeling that will be very soon.  The cinema attendants might just get to know me as "the guy who goes to Les Mis every day".

See this film if you enjoyed the stage show, see this film if you enjoy musicals in general, see this film if you like costume dramas.