Reviews: Les Miserables

 

            I love musicals, and my all-time favorite is Les Miserables; the epic stage adaptation of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. As such, I looked forward to Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech)’s long-delayed big-screen adaptation with equal parts excitement and trepidation; would the story be too long and complex for the screen, necessitating lethal cuts? Would any movie be able to match the unique spectacle of the show’s famous rotating stage? Would the deep Christian themes be permitted to shine through? Most importantly, would they be able to find actors and actresses with both the acting ability and the vocal chops to carry it off?

            In post-revolutionary France, convict Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is released on parole after nineteen years hard labor, all for stealing a loaf of bread. Unable to find work or lodging due to his status as a convict, he ends up staying one night at the home of a saintly bishop (Colm Wilkinson, who originated the role of Valjean on stage). Bitter and hateful after his long imprisonment, Valjean steals the bishop’s silverware, but when he is caught and brought back, the bishop surprises him by claiming that not only was the silverware a gift, but that he also gave Valjean two priceless silver candlesticks as well.

            Stunned by the man’s mercy, Valjean prays for forgiveness and vows to amend his life. From there he finds himself forced, time and time again, to choose between selfishness and mercy, while his story crosses with other miserable people such as Fantine (Anne Hathaway in the film’s stand-out performance), a single mother who ends up working as a prostitute to pay for her daughter, Cosette (played as a child by Isabelle Allen and as an adult by Amanda Seyfried), who lives with the crooked innkeepers Monsieur and Madam Thenadier (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonhem Carter) and their own daughter, Eponine (played as a child by Natalya Wallace and as an adult by Samantha Barks), and revolutionary students such as Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and Enjolras (Aaron Tveit). Meanwhile, his every step is dogged by the implacable Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), who is determined to bring Valjean back to prison.

            The story spans some twenty years, during which Valjean rises from a penniless convict to a respected factory owner and mayor, until circumstances force him to become a fugitive again. The action finally all converges on Paris on the eve of a revolution.

            I’m being deliberately vague here because I suspect most people have some idea of how the story goes, and for those who don’t I’d just as soon let them discover it for themselves. Suffice to say, what emerges is an epic story of flight, revolution, freedom, mercy, tragedy, and, above all, love.

            It has been a long time since we’ve had a proper film-musical, and most of the recent attempts at reviving it have been flaccid efforts at best, such as the by-all-accounts lame Mamma Mia and the weird, trashy Chicago. Les Miserables comes, strips off the gloves, and reminds us just what a real Musical looks like. Almost the whole film is done in music, with only brief and occasional spoken lines. Sometimes the characters will talk to each other through song, other times the songs will give voice to their inner thoughts and struggles as they wrestle with themselves, or with God.

            The story, far from being cut, has actually been expanded in some places (including a whole new song not from the play), almost always to good effect. For instance, a new scene has Valjean show Javert mercy almost from the beginning, foreshadowing a much later, and more important scene. The staging of Fantine’s dismissal has been done in such a way as to mitigate somewhat Valjean’s crucial indifference, and an effective chase scene reemphasizes how dangerous Valjean’s life has become (ending with him seeking refuge in a monastery, where the sisters pray to the tune of the bishop's song).  

            Of course, the whole purpose of a film adaptation of a stage musical is to lend the visual power of the medium to the power of the music, and Tom Hooper, together with his talented ensemble, makes full use of his opportunity. For instance you could never have shown on stage the way Javert walks along the very edge of the parapet during his magnificent Stars number, visually demonstrating his own unyielding attitude toward life.  And even if you could, you would never be able to make it as powerful as it is here, where the camera shows Javert’s point of view as he calmly looks past his own feet to the long, terrible fall he is courting with each step. Nor could the stage ever have matched the poetry of the moment where Fantine, when she reaches out for her daughter, simultaneously reaches for the cross.

            The Cross is a recurring image throughout the film. When Valjean is first released, he pauses by a rough wooden cross on a snow-swept hillside to contemplate his position. When he swears unyielding hatred toward those who imprisoned him, the camera swings around so that the cross is no longer visible, but then when he starts to look to the future, it swings around again, bringing the cross back into view. Later, when Valjean is begging forgiveness after the incident with the silver, he not only prays before the altar but two broken crucifixes lay next to him.

            This, of course, points to the movie’s recurring emphasis on mercy and sacrificial love. Valjean is faced again and again with terrible choices, with safety and comfort on one hand, sacrifice and danger on the other. After becoming mayor, he discovers that the police have captured a man they took to be him; forcing him to give up everything he’s worked for to save an innocent. Later he finds himself torn between possibly losing his adopted daughter, the only person he’s ever loved, and breaking her heart.

            The wonderful thing is that each time, when he does the right thing, Valjean grows and becomes a better person. There is always some ‘hidden benefit’ in doing the right thing, and Valjean becomes increasingly saint-like as the story goes on, gradually shedding every ounce of the selfishness that he expressed in the opening scene, becoming by degrees humble, generous, loving, and merciful.

            The movie itself embodies its merciful themes. Almost no major or minor character is left wholly unsympathetic (the main exceptions being the amoral Thenadiers). Javert, ostensibly the story’s main antagonist, not only shows tremendous courage and dignity throughout, but also, in a truly moving moment, (not in the original play) even pauses to honor a fallen enemy. Likewise the national guard who battle the heroic revolutionaries are shown to just be ordinary people doing their duty, and the commander in charge has more than one humanizing moment that shows that he is troubled by what he has to do. Then there’s Marius’s rich, snobbish grandfather, who angrily tells his rebellious grandson that he is “shaming the whole family,” but who is later seen to truly love the young man. Rich or poor, royal or revolutionary, anyone can be damned and anyone can be a saint.

            As the above indicates, the movie is gratifyingly frank about its Christian and Catholic worldview. The cross, as noted, is a recurring motif throughout, while Valjean’s story-arch is that of a sinner becoming a saint and purging his soul of every disordered desire. All the characters pray and reference God frequently, and there’s even moments alluding to such theologically complex ideas as the intercessory prayers of the saints, the Beatific Vision, and clergy acting in persona Christi. At a time when the best Christians generally can expect from the movies is for them to not be actively insulting, Les Miserables is like a long drink of cool water to one who is dying of thirst.

            Hugh Jackman as Valjean is the crux that holds the whole film together, and he rises to the occasion marvelously. He sells Valjean’s tortured struggles to do the right thing, to cooperate with God’s Grace even in the face of terrible difficulties and seemingly impossible choices. What distinguishes Valjean from everyone else is that he keeps in mind the words of the Bishop, that his soul belongs to God, so in the face of every decision and struggle he keeps his eyes fixed on Jesus, and like St. Peter walking on the water, this allows him to do what seems impossible. Perhaps this is best symbolized in a scene late in the movie where Valjean ends up literally swimming through excrement in the sewers of Paris; he can be in unbearable situations without being of them.  

            I must admit, it took me a little while to get used to his voice. Not that it’s bad, of course; on the contrary, Jackman has a beautiful and powerful singing voice that shines in some of the film’s hardest numbers. However, his voice is on a much higher octave than I’m used to hearing Valjean’s part sung as, so it took a while for me to adjust. As noted, though, he sings up a storm, excelling particularly in the quiet, introspective numbers such as Who Am I and Bring Him Home.

            I was worried about Russell Crowe as Javert. Quite apart from his more limited musical range, he struck me as being too, well, nice-looking to play Javert, whom I always picture as being extremely stern and hard of face. Nevertheless, he performed the role admirably, giving it precisely the cold, blank, mask-like expression that Javert should have, while using his considerable sympathetic qualities to make us feel for the character in the moments where the mask slips. Musically, I was impressed; he acquits himself well, particularly in the ‘conversational’ songs like Confrontation (here re-envisioned as a sword fight, which lends extra power to the number, but alas denies us the song’s chilling final verses). His biggest problem was that he felt too constrained, as though he didn’t trust himself to sing some of the more difficult notes (like the climax to Stars, which is far too quiet). 

            The best performance in the film, however, is Anne Hathaway’s portrayal of Fantine. Hathaway embodies the character, perhaps the most miserable of all the miserable people in the story, so perfectly, makes her plight so heartbreaking, that she quite simply makes the film worth seeing just for her sake. Not only is her tragic, agonized performance guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes, but her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream is the highlight of the whole film. Raw, powerful, and perfectly sung in Hathaway’s gorgeous voice, it sets a new standard by which that song should be judged.

            Amanda Seyfried also impressed as Cosette. Cosette is usually a pretty dull character, but Seyfried invests her with enough life and loveliness that we can almost buy Marius falling in love with her at first sight (their romance, arguably the story’s weakest element, works much better on film than on stage, largely thanks to some judicious use of close-ups). She handles her comparatively few numbers well in her bird-like voice, and she and Eddie Redmayne work well together.

            Redmayne himself, meanwhile, makes for fine Marius, with a strong tenor voice and a more meaty character than the play allowed (his above-mentioned grandfather, for instance, is a helpful touch not found on stage). His best musical number is a haunting rendition of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, which almost rivals Dreamed a Dream for the saddest and most moving song in the film.

 Aaron Tveit as Enjolras projects real revolutionary fervor, and belts his part out with considerable feeling. Daniel Huttlestone makes for a swell Gavroche, the street urchin: all devil-may-care, artful-dodger-style independence and earnestness (his voice is fine, though obviously immature, and Gavroche doesn’t have a whole lot of singing to do anyway). The rest of the revolutionaries, like in the play, don’t really come out as individuals, but they have some excellent moments (such as the way one of them frantically tries to call Gavroche back when he ventures beyond the barricade) and all of them are excellent singers.

             Newcomer Samantha Barks, who also played Eponine on stage, brings an effortless poignancy to the role. In particular, I want to note a scene where she is leading Marius (whom she loves) to meet with Cosette, and despite the fact that she’s taking him to another woman, whom he loves as he will never love her, she’s still all smiles and laughter just to be with him for this little while. Her rendition of On My Own is another film highlight, particularly her final, tearful repetitions of “I love him…”

            On the other end of the spectrum, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenadiers are an absolute scream; all bawdy humor, broad slapstick, and sticky fingers. They sing their roles marvelously (though, if we’re honest, no one’s really thinking about musical tone during Master of the House), and I love how Thenadier keeps getting Cosette’s name wrong (something I loved in the stage performance I saw and haven’t seen in any other version).  

            Finally, little Isabelle Allen is both adorable and an absolute spitting image of the iconic Cosette picture that has long since been the image of Hugo’s novel and all adaptations.

            After Tom Hooper’s sedate, stylistically reserved The King’s Speech, some were wondering whether he had the right style for an epic musical like this. Rest assured, he delivers. The movie is visually engrossing from the very first shot of a discarded, floating French flag to the final, full-cast number on the barricade. Spectacular imagery abounds; the frozen, barren landscape Valjean journeys across upon being released (symbolizing the brutal barrenness of his life), the filthy slums where prostitutes lurk, the pit-like cabin where Fantine has her first customer, Notre Dame and the Paris skyline during Stars (which is symbolically reversed for a later Javert number), and, of course, the rough, cobbled-together barricade where the revolutionaries battle the national guard.

            Not only the imagery, but the blocking is remarkable. There isn’t much of what you would call dancing in this film (except, in the end, at a wedding feast), but Hooper comes up with some clever ways to marry music and motion, such as the way At the End of the Day matches the movement of the factory workers, or how some of the notes of One Day More are punctuated with rifles being loaded with ramrods.

            Of course, the songs are all spectacular, from the opening Work Song, sung by a baritone choir of prisoners, to the tremulous Come to Me, to the boisterous Master of the House, to the heart-stirring Do you Hear the People Sing. I am not the right person to attempt to describe the music, but the artistry, the lyrical power that goes into it is breathtaking. For instance, note the way certain tunes are reused in different songs, drawing attention to the repeated themes of, say, Valjean and Javert’s different responses to acts of mercy. The story, music, and writing are interwoven in a way that, in my somewhat limited experience, I’ve only occasionally seen in other musicals. What we have here is more than just songs set to a storyline; we have a kind of total art, marrying music, acting, poetry, and literature in one awe-inspiring package.

            So is it perfect? Sadly, no. While the movie only cuts one song in its entirety (Dog Eats Dog: no great loss), it often cuts large sections from the songs it does keep, depriving us of some of the most lyrically beautiful moments in the story, and occasionally making the songs feel a little choppy. A somewhat more serious problem is that, while I adored both Cohen and Bonham Cater as the Thenadiers, the Master of the House number was a little too broad, almost cartoonish, to the extent that it felt as though it were from another film entirely. Finally, Hugh Jackman barely looks his very handsome and youthful 44, meaning that, for the later scenes when Valjean is supposed to be an ‘old man,’ he looks entirely too young for the part (Russell Crowe’s Javert has a similar problem, though it’s less crucial for him). With all the excellent makeup showcased on screen, you’d think they’d have done a better job of aging the characters. Finally, as noted, Russell Crowe just doesn’t seem as comfortable with his musical part as he really should.

            Les Miserables is a feast for the eyes, ears, and the soul. It’s easily one of the best films of the year, and possibly one of the finest movie musicals of all time.

Final Rating: 5/5. Visually, aurally, emotionally, and spiritually, this movie is a triumph.