Date: 2012
Director: Tom Hooper
Summary: After serving nineteen years of a
prison sentence, Jean Valjean gains his freedom, but the papers he carries
identify him as a criminal and he cannot find enough work to survive. Bitter and angry, he determines to live like
the criminal people think he is, but a chance encounter transforms his
life. Now a man of God, Valjean adopts
the orphan of a dying woman and raises her as his own. A student revolution, however, brews in the
streets of Paris and soon nothing will be the same.
Review: Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables gained a lot of early buzz because the actors sang
live on camera, rather than prerecording their songs. This technique provides to the film a realism
sometimes lacking in screen musicals.
Awareness of lip-syncing does not detract from the story; the characters
seem to live and breathe onscreen.
However, the actors still had to compete with all the singers who have
portrayed the characters of Les
Misérables throughout the years.
Colm Wilkinson, for example, has made the role of Jean Valjean his
own—how would Hugh Jackman compare?
Although some of the performances were not as strong as they might have
been, overall the cast provides an emotionally charged rendition of Les Misérables.
Anne Hathaway stands out from the rest of the cast with
her stirring portrayal of Fantine, the woman forced to sell her body order to
provide for her young daughter. Her
rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” generated early talk of an Oscar nomination; rather
than belt out the song, Hathaway chose to sing it with a broken voice,
reflecting how emotionally and psychologically bruised her character
feels. Both this song and her death
scene, in which Fantine hallucinates the presence of her daughter Cosette,
brought tears to my eyes. Hathaway has a
gorgeous voice and it was a pure delight to listen to her sing.
My only complaint about Fantine lies with the
costuming. She initially dresses in
pink, even though everyone else in her workplace wears more somber attire. Presumably the costume designer wanted
Fantine to look conspicuous so audiences could pick her out, but Fantine should
thematically function as simply another face in the crowd. She also had gorgeous hair, unlike every
other woman in the room. The effect made
it seem as though Fantine must have more money than the rest of the workers,
which is simply not true, as subsequent events will prove.
The rest of the characters seemed to wear more
appropriate costuming—most notably Éponine, who at one point dresses as a
boy. I have only seen concert versions
of the musical, in which audiences must accept that wearing a long coat makes a
girl indistinguishable from a male. In
the film, Éponine actually binds her breasts and hides her hair under her cap,
presenting a much more realistic disguise.
I also really liked her dresses; though poor, Éponine knows how to
accentuate with a nice belt.
Though Samantha Barks, being relatively unknown compared
to the rest of the cast, received little attention before the release of the
film, her portrayal of Éponine is my favorite.
She performed the role in the 25th anniversary concert and
made it her own. She brings to the
character a charming wistfulness that makes her story all the more
poignant. It seems remarkable that one
who has seen so much poverty and so much wrong could maintain the hopeful
outlook she has on life. She also
retains a beautiful soul, sacrificing her own feelings for the man she loves. Hooper’s version unfortunately changes this
part, however—Éponine no longer delivers Marius’s letter to Cosette, but makes
a different sacrifice, one that I would argue is infinitely less moving and
even suggests a certain despair.
Regardless of what her character does, however, Samantha Barks
shines. I really hope that this film
proves her big break and that audiences will see—and hear—a lot more of her in the
future.
If the changes made to Éponine were not well-advised,
those made to Marius certainly were. Eddie
Redmayne’s interpretation of the character brings him to life in a way I have
never envisioned. No longer merely a boy
hopelessly mooning over a girl he bumped into on the street, Marius shows
himself a dedicated revolutionary full of fire and prepared to make sacrifices
so that he does not live off the work of others. Perhaps for the first time, I really liked
Marius. His interactions with the rest
of the students are especially nice.
They share a great camaraderie and I could really believe Aaron Tveit as
a friend of the boys—not merely a manic revolutionary.
The rest of the cast did well, but I felt that their
performances were not as strong as the others’.
Even though Hugh Jackman has received a Golden Globe nomination for best
actor, I just do not like him as Jean Valjean when I compare him to singers
like Colm Wilkinson and Alfie Boe.
Russell Crowe as Javert seems too emotionless to me. Perhaps he meant to interpret the character
in that way—it would be an appropriate reflection of Javert’s too strict
devotion to duty—but I find it hard to believe a man could sustain a manhunt
for something like eighteen or nineteen years without feeling some passion. Amanda Seyfried as Cosette perhaps had a
disadvantage from the start as her character has little development and
functions mainly as a convenient love interest.
She does little to bring more personality to the role, however, and her
voice in the beginning seems weak, though her performance improves by the
end.
To criticize the singing of Helena Bonham Carter and
Sacha Baron Cohen as the Thénardiers may be unjust. Baron Cohen sings well, so far as I know, but
I do not feel that he brings anything special to the role. Bonham Carter seems a little weak on the vocals
at times, but whether she intends to sound that way remains unclear. Mostly likely the two were not chosen for their
singing, but to bring a certain comedic over-theatricality to their roles. I suppose they were successful in that, but their
outlandish costumes and the illogicality of their business operations distracted
me from their performances most of the time.
My final criticism of the film deals not with performances,
but with the background on which they were set. Hooper provides some lovely and some realistic
settings for his characters; my favorites are the bishop’s house and the convent,
where audiences can see some beautiful Christian art. However, the film is too self-aware of its own
epic potential and when Hooper tries to zoom out to give a large-scale depiction
of France, the CGI becomes unbelievable. The story of suffering individuals is a large and
epic story in itself; if the film had focused on that, instead of trying to impress
viewers with its own magnitude, it would have been more successful.
Despite some weak performances, however, the film as a whole
proves a strong version of a classic musical. Memorable and stirring performance are given by
many of the actors, and the screen brings France to life in a way that the stage
cannot. Beauty, suffering, passion, and pride
combine to present a story that will always be relevant: a story about the transformative
power of love.
Content Note: Les
Misérables deals with a lot of heavy themes, including the toll poverty,
imprisonment, and unjust laws have on people.
One character turns to prostitution to survive and the film includes
some sexual activity. Violence is also depicted,
as part of the story is set during the Paris Uprising of 1832.
