It is an ambitious film with a lot of expectation. Not only is one of the most popular novels by the biggest French author in literature, but it is the most popular musical of all-time. Which, being produced in the 80's and 90's where musicals are way past their golden age is really saying something! Les Misérables is set in 19th century Paris and tells the story of Jean Valijean, who has just been released on parole after a 19-year stint in the chain gangs for robbing a house to feed his starving family. Upon release, the officer Javert, warns him not to break his parole and that the papers he carry will always brand him a thief. Valijean realises that to change his life he has to break parole and Javert thus vows to hunt him down and bring him to justice.
First the good things - it looks amazing. It really captures the sights, sounds and smells of old Paris. The introduction is particularly epic. Costumes are amazing and very authentic looking.
It was well directed and well-shot and if it was a normal film, it might have worked.
However, if you are a fan musicals in general, you will be very disappointed. It is not sung with any musical legitimacy. The aim is to pull everything back to sound like people are speaking normally to each other. Sometimes it is effective, but over the whole time period of the movie, it becomes boring and monotonous and you just wish that people would just speak instead.
And they do... there is no dialogue in the original (which is sung all the way through like grand opera), but heaps of music is cut for dialogue... but it doesn't make the movie any shorter as sometimes the dialogue takes longer than the original music does! There are also a lot of alterations to keys of songs and to certain passages to suit singers - particularly Hugh Jackman's (Jean Valijean) part.
I was fine with the cuts when they cut out all the obviously theatrical elements ie. inner monologues or exposition through song. But a lot of other cuts stripped so much from the characters. Eponine and all of the students were completely undeveloped. Most of the new music was rehashing and repeating themes that were already there. Most of the new text was invariably not as well written as the original text.
As for performances - there are a couple of great performances and a lot of very average ones.
The standout was Anne Hathaway was absolutely phenomenal. She is the best Fantine I have ever seen or heard. She looks just like you expect Fantine to look! She does something really unique with the music. It is a harrowing performance and it was a really good choice from the director to add the particularly disturbing section from the novel that is left out of the musical.
Hugh Jackman is the most believable Valijean I have seen on stage or screen - not only physically believable (which is a very tough ask given how he is described in the book) but he was really immersed into the character. A very fine, noble and nuanced performance. I was frustrated that he couldn't sing it and that they had to change a lot of the music. However, if you don't know Les Miserables already, you won't notice it until his big song "Bring Him Home" at the barricade, where they made the unfortunate choice to keep it in its original (high tenor) key.
I was really worried when I'd heard who they had cast as the Thernadiers, the evil heart of the story, but I was really surprised by Sascha Baron Cohen and especially Helena Bonham Carter as the Thernadiers - Sascha Baron's quasi-Greek Italian accent aside. Helena Bonham Carty sings much better in this than in Sweeney Todd. They were suitably nasty, but they managed to balance it with humour. With all the new dialogue, songs etc. the Thernadiers were unfortunately not given more. There is a LOT more in the book.
He gets a lot of negative rap, but Russell Crowe had good moments when he wasn't attempting to "sing", but he doesn't have the training for this role. It's a killer. As soon as he had to do some real singing, his acting suffered. It's a shame - he has a nice voice, he fits the part and I reckon if he really trained he'd be fabulous.
He was by no means the worst singer - I was more impressed with him than with Marius), Cosette and Eponine. Eponine was the only one in the movie who pronounced Cosette as Koe-sett... obviously listened to Gary Morris on the complete symphonic recording one too many times.
After Fantine's part in the story ends and we get past the Innkeeper's spectacular opening scene - it is probably time to leave the theater.
The second half is a mess. The cuts really killed the pace and the impact of the story. I just didn't care about the students or Eponine as we never got to meet them... they were just underdeveloped. A lot of things went unexplained - e.g. what are the students fighting for? Why is it important? why is Thernadier the innkeeper robbing houses? Oh wait... the explanations was cut... it is NOT the fault of the musical.
As much as I love the musical, I never need to watch this version again unfortunately. I only hope that when I next see it on stage, I don't see people attempting to perform it in this way!
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