Movie Review #42 Les Misérables (2012)

- I dreamed a dream about a lot of sadness and suffering

Here is something I don't usually watch, live action musicals. I admit that often the idea of a live action musical bothers me, far more than say an animated one. For instance, a lion singing to a pig and cat? Totally fine. A guy singing while trying to avoid capture from the police? Utterly ridiculous, but every so often I dive back into live action musicals and give it the old college try. It has a star-studded cast based on the novel by Victor Hugo, which then evolved into various different stage plays, theatrical versions, and ultimately the book by Claude-Michel Schönberg and musical by Alain Boublil. The 2012 version is another attempt.

I should probably start by saying I hear this is one of the first movies to have the actors sing on set instead of having to lip-sync with themselves at a later date. I would have honestly thought this was done more often as I would think it would be easier to let actors act while singing the meaningful lyrics. But then what do I know about singing? (answer is nothing) but still I hear praise coming toward director Tom Hooper for doing it this way so good on you for doing something I thought would be obvious to do.

Les Misérables starts with a great introduction to the main two characters, different sides of a coin. Jean Valjean a.k.a. 24601 (played by Hugh Jackman) and Javert (played by Russell Crowe), the prisoner and the jailer respectively. The song “Look Down” is my second favourite song in the rather lengthy 2 hour and 37 minute film so to say the introduction is strong is an understatement. There are many character conflicts throughout the movie but the look of Jean Valjean, the contempt he holds for Javert, the system and his struggles put through prisoners is fully shown in the first couple of minutes and you have yourself the struggling hero of the movie. Javert in the meantime shows his fierce devotion to the law and the rules given to him by the government in the exact same song. It's a wonderful dichotomy given to the viewer. A time skip occurs and Jean Valjean has cleaned up quite well for himself post-prison and we are introduced to another character, Fantine (played by Anne Hathaway), a girl who is forced to turn tricks for small change to keep her young daughter alive who is being kept at an Inn by Thénardier (played by Sacha Baron Cohen) and Madame Thénardier (played by Helena Bonham Carter). Of course the Thénardiers are swindlers and all-around terrible people. They are also involved in all the worst scenes in the movie and the worst songs.

In many early scenes Valjean is seen looking up at Javert

I have two pretty heavy problems with the movie, firstly the movie drags a bit, certainly after the second time skip when the hopeful revolution begins. We meet an entire set of characters none of which you are emotionally connected to till it is much too late. Too much time is spent on everything surrounding the revolution while I wasn't being given a stronger emotional connection to any of the cast. I mean this is called Les Misérables we all know terrible things are going to happen and looking at the movie length you know it's going to happen a lot before things get better and this is the second problem, I was honestly unable to become emotionally attached to the cast, perhaps a problem with musicals and myself but I feel all the words and things are there but it being sung to me dampens the strength of the words and I no longer get connected to them. A majority of this film is soul crushing, I see that and understand it but wasn't able to fully commit to the sadness and just shrugged it off unlike other movie goers who surrounded me.

To summarize the review, it is rather lengthy and at times you'll feel it. While there are some very strong moments throughout (the two songs Look Down and Confrontation) and depending on your attachment to characters you can find yourself crying quite a bit. The story is overall strong but has cracks with the Thénardiers and Éponine (played by Samantha Barks).

I give it a 7/10

PS: You can all stop with the joke about Gladiator chasing Wolverine and Borat being mean to Catwoman's child. It is as funny as The Thénardiers throughout the movie.