Les Misérables Review

Before I start I must admit two important things. Firstly, I loathe the "sung through" nature of  musicals like Les Misérables, which I personally believe sound disjointed and erratic. Secondly, I have neither seen the musical live nor read the 19th century novel on which it is based. While my first admission obviously makes me a tad biased, the latter is somewhat advantageous. In my opinion, a film must be able to survive as a stand alone product, even if it is based on something that everyone and their mum has already read/seen/listened to. Les Misérables succeeds in being a complete entity, if not necessarily being a great film.

Les Misérables can best be defined as a story of two parts. The first entail's Jean Valjean's escape from lawman Javert, his rise to wealth, and later adoption of Fantine's child Cosette. The second tells the romantic tale of Cosette and Marius' love affair against the backdrop of the  anti monarchist revolution. Unfortunately it is here that we spot our first flaw. The running time stolen by the former part prevents the latter's characters from becoming familiar to the audience, thereby making many of their own plot lines and developments seem like an afterthought rather than an epic finale. The film's aforementioned length is in itself an issue, coming in at a beefy total of 158 minutes, much of which I spent picking away at my seat and cup-holder in an effort to entertain myself.

My boredom can best be explained by the film's dull visuals, a series of dark grey backdrops which would have been a crushing blow if it wasn't for, you know, the whole "musical side". Throughout Les Misérables, I felt like the film was just meant to be listened to, and any moviegoer with the audacity to pay attention to the images only had themselves to blame for their sense of tedium. To make matters worse, each scene focused solely on it's singer, rather than the interesting decor or set piece that should have accompanied them. This may partly be to advertise the fact that, yes, the singing was actually done live on-camera, but do we really care? Would you rather have enjoyed a better performance or have had the knowledge that they did it live? I would go for the former any day of the week.

However, the one exception to that last paragraph is Anne Hathaway's rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream". The intense anguish of a mother forced to lower herself to prostitution to provide for her daughter was obvious during Hathaway's brilliant performance which will surely see her as a serious contender for Best supporting actress at this year's academy awards. Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Banks all stand out as fantastic singers, although it's a shame that they're saved until the film's second half. Jackman competently performs as Valjean, while Crowe's more grounded vocals are that of the honest and humble lawman that his character should really be. Despite this, their performances are merely satisfactory, not reach for the tissues worthy, and it's obvious that singing does not come naturally to either of them.

As a work of cinema, Les Misérables is an uninspired and overly long adaptation which is thankfully saved by a rousing soundtrack and a handful of potentially Oscar worthy performances which will keep many audience members in tears long after the credits have rolled. Testament to the film's emotional punch is the fact that complaints have been lodged against audience members who were powerless to resist the temptation to sing along.