Better Late Than Never: A Contrarian's Review of LES MISERABLES.

I actually wrote this review of LES MISERABLES months ago, before the Oscars, but something went wonky with Live Journal and the review vanished before I could post it, and I was too lazy to start over from scratch.  Lo and behold, the review reappeared in a phantom version of my account yesterday, sort of an alternate reality where you can tell the heroes and duplicate villains apart because the villains wear beards and show their midriffs.    In full defiance of the space-time continuum, here it is.

A Contrarian's Review of LES MISERABLES

Les Miserables is a decent movie adaptation of a mediocre musical stage production based on a classic book. Hugh Jackman and Ann Hathaway act and sing the hell out of really unmemorable, faux opera style songs; you know, the kind that go like this: "I'm GO-ing to the DEL-i; oh, WHY won't they sell me SAU-sage!" Jackman is so perfect singing bad songs that you almost take for granted how good he is in the movie. One thing bothered me about Jackman in the film: the story takes place over a period of decades, but Jean Valjean doesn't age a day, except for a few discreet gray hairs, and then at the end he ages all of the decades and more practically overnight. Worse, his old age makeup makes him look like Mel Gibson does now. I kept thinking during the heartbreaking scene in which an Angel forgives him for turning her into a prostitute who dies, "Don't die, Jean Valjean! You can play Mad Max if Tom Hardy doesn't work out!"

Whether or not you've seen the movie, you've no doubt heard how awesome Anne Hathaway is, and how she's guaranteed a Best Actress Oscar. I loved Hathaway as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, and I wish she'd win an Oscar for her performance in that, but since she isn't nominated for meowing it's unlikely. A couple of months ago, I read on Entertainment Weekly's website that some people don't like Hathaway because she "tries too hard." This made no sense to me; how can an actor try too hard? Isn't this like Jeffrey Jones's "too many notes" line in Amadeus? If I pay in part to see an actor perform, I want him to work at it. But after seeing Les Miserables, I know exactly what that snarky EW columnist meant: sometimes Hathaway does try too hard, and Les Mis is one of those times. When she collects that Oscar I'm just going to pretend it's for wearing the cat suit, not for getting her hair cut on camera. For me, the movie became interesting the second Hathaway's Fantine died, because that's when Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe crossed swords, and Jackman made an apparently suicidal leap from a window into some water, ala Harrison Ford from that sewer opening in the waterfall in The Fugitive, based on a TV show which was also based on Victor Hugo's novel (Roy Huggins, the creator of The Fugitive, named Barry Morse's Inspector Gerard after Hugo's obsessive policeman Javert, get
it?)

Russel Crowe has taken a lot of barbs for his role as Javert, mainly because he can't sing. Well, that isn't exactly true; Crowe was the front man for a rock band for many years. He can sing, he just can't sing melodramatic faux opera. I actually loved Crowe in the film, which I thought lagged whenever he wasn't onscreen. I also thought two other actors frequently singled out for criticism in this film were excellent: Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, who both appear to have wandered in from the superior movie musical Sweeney Todd, directed by Carter's husband, Tim Burton. Oh, and the little girl who played Hathaway's daughter was very good, and the little boy who (SPOILER ALERT!) gets killed in the French Revolution was great. The stage show of Les Mis, which has been playing for a decade short of forever, has always featured an illustration of a child on its poster; I'm not sure if that's supposed to be the little girl, the little boy, or Fantine, since all three performers of those roles in the movie resemble it.

Tom Hooper has gotten a lot of credit for having his actors sing live during filming instead of lip synching, and for shooting his cast in tight close-ups, which is uncommon in movie musicals. I have no idea if singing live helped the performers, although I do know it resulted in the heat taken by Crowe, but as I watched the film I thought, of course Hooper shot the songs in close-up: in almost every instance, the leads are all alone when they're singing; it would have been boring if they had sung in wide shots with no one interacting with them, I honestly think most directors would have done the same thing with that material. I did have to laugh early on in the film when Jackman lifts a cart off an injured man, saving his life just like Wolverine would, and the music swells in a really dramatic way, just like it did when Javert forced Jean Valjean to lift a French flag mounted on a mast at the beginning. Dum-DUM-da-da-da- DUM-du-duh! This one didn't have to go to eleven, boys.

If you think I'm being too hard on Les Mis, I actually enjoyed the film quite a bit, and I was completely ambivalent about the Broadway show. My wife loved the film, and she doesn't love too many things we see. My daughter liked it too, but she cried whenever someone died. That's life in a movie musical about the French Revolution.