After serving 19 years as a prisoner in Post French Revolution France, Jean Valjean(Hugh Jackman) is released to be a free man, but he finds freedom to not be very freeing. His crime, stealing bread to feed his sister's dying kid, does not seem to warrant the reaction he has received. No one will hire a former felon, and he cannot find a place to sleep. After he is given food and bed from a Bishop, Valjean steals all of the valuables from the Church. He does not believe in the good of man and who can blame him. However, when he is caught, the Bishop tells the police that Valjean was given the valuables and he left without taking the candlesticks as well. Valjean realizes here he is at a Crossroads, he can use these valuables to better his life, but it means throwing away his papers and not going to his parole hearing. He must become a fugitive. Cut to a few years later, and Valjean is living as a business owner and mayor of a small Parisian town. The gruff Law officer, Javert(Russel Crowe) has been dispatched to Valjean's town, and Javert quickly thinks something is up with Valjean, but he cannot quite place it. In this town, Fantine (Anne Hathaway) loses her job at Valjean's factory and because she has to send money to innkeepers who are watching after her little girl Cosette, Fantine sells her hair, her teeth and eventually her body. When Valjean realizes what has happened, he promises Fantine that he will protect her daughter. Cut to another few years later and Valjean and Cosette(Amanda Seyfreid) live a quiet life in France, but revolution is brewing. And love is brewing as well. Cosette has met Marius(Eddie Redmayne)and they instantly fall in love, but Marius is a man of the revolution and once Valjean decides he and Cosette have to leave because Javert is on his trail, Marius throws himself fully into war. Oh and the whole thing is sung.
I am much more of a film guy than I am a musical theater guy, and I believe that in reviewing a film adaptation of anything, you have to stick to the film. It has to stand on its own merits. So in thinking of that I have to say that I do not love Les Miserables. Yet, I am completely in love with this movie. It succeeds on almost every level and I connected emotionally to it in so many different ways. Every time I thought I was done crying, something would trigger another sobbing emotion. It did not even feel like nearly 3 hours to me. From the moment Jackman started singing to the very end, I was completely hooked by the people on the screen. Once I let the movie wash over me, I was completely enthralled, which is saying something because the director (Tom Hooper) tried his best to ruin the entire experience.
Jackman not only gives his best performance ever, but he gives what is easily the best performance of the year and the best in quite a few years if you ask me. His gravitas mixed with a deep sensitivity leads to one of the most heartbreaking male lead performances I have ever seen. I found his vocals to be exactly what they should have been. His performance ripped me apart in a number of ways. From the start as a completely broken man to a man searching for redemption for the rest of the film, Jackman is perfect. His rendition of "Bring him Home" crushed me. The softness of his voice in that vulnerable moment was enough to make me literally weep. And to follow it up with a rugged determination to Marius away from the war was such a stark difference, but he handled both with ease.
Eddie Redmayne is another guy who I felt gave a knockout performance. Facebook is griping about his Kermit voice or his jaw wiggling, but I was too ripped apart during his "Empty Chairs, Empty Tables" performances to notice. He was diligent, romantic, full of great ideals and it is not difficult to understand how love completely sweeps him up. I know people wish that Aaron Tveit has just been cast as Marius not Enjolras, and honestly, that probably would have been great casting, but I think it would have robbed people of Tveit's great Enjolras and it is truly a great performance in a role that could easily be a "whatever" role. It is a pretty thankless role, if you ask me and Tveit turns it into a powerhouse supporting role worthy of the epicness of Enjolras's fate as Hooper shoots it. As Cosette, Seyfreid is fine. She is super pretty and her voice, while a bit thin, does not deter from the show and she and Redmayne have a nice chemistry. Samantha Barks as Eponine, a childhood friend of Cosette's and a hopeful lover of marius, just kills "On my Own" but in my opinion, she is too pretty to be Eponine. Not that Eponine has to be ugly, but Barks is stunning and it is a little weird for her to be the scorned.
Anne Hathaway, sweet lord is she phenomenal. I love her, and have loved her for a while. I think she was robbed in Rachel Getting Married. This year she has had two wonderful, and completely different performances. Here, as Fantine, she has the best single moment in the movie. Her "I Dreamed a Dream" is a serious showstopper. It was gut wrenching, heart breaking and superb. I wanted to applaud when it was done. She completely owns the movie every time she is on screen and you want so much more of her. Hathaway's Fantine not only rips you apart, it puts you back together, just to rip you apart again. Then you have Russel Crowe. The man is getting torn to shreds by everyone, but I do not really get it. His vocals are not as strong as the others, but he does not have a bad voice. It just does not fit as well as the others. I actually found his controlled performance to be quite effective. He also looked great in the costumes. He looks like an officer of the law. His "Stars" was not as epic as I think many always hope it is going to be, but he did not bother me. I know that is not a ringing endorsement, but he does not take away from the movie.
Through all of that, I have to say Tom Hooper does his best to ruin this movie with some of the most egregious uses of dutch tilts I have ever seen in a movie this side of Doubt. Why oh why must you tilt every shot Hooper? Why must you take the camera away from these great, simple shots and do awful things to them? You have these great actors giving heart breaking performances left and right, just leave the damn camera alone. It was so frustrating to watch these awful tilts when I was trying to just watch these songs with such great gusto. This reaffirms my hatred for Hooper.
I have seen every complaint possible about this movie from my musical theater friends, and of course, everyone is entitled to think what they. I found the film to be an arresting and emotional three hours that I want to experience again. The performances are so strong and the emotional connection to the characters so exquisite that it overcame Hooper's obnoxious dutch tilts. The costumes is excellent, the color palette for the backgrounds took some getting used to, but for me, this movie is all about the performances. Seeing all of the Facebook comments also reaffirms that I am not really a musical theater person. I am a movie person. I think if someone had just put a stage version onto the screen, I would have hated it, like I often hate the musical on stage when I see it. On stage the performances are always too broad, the singing too big and pretty to be emotionally arresting and the set never looks as good as it should. In this film, all of that is solved, for me.
Oh I just realized I left out Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, if only they were left out of the movie...
Final Grade: A-
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