Les Misérables
Composite Score: 85.34
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks, Daniel Huttlestone, and Isabelle Allen
Director: Tom Hooper
Writers: William Nicholson, Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer
Genres: Drama, Musical, Romance, History
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for suggestive and sexual material, violence, and thematic elements
Box Office: $442.30 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Les Misérables is the film adaptation of the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name about a fugitive from the law in 19th-century France whose life takes many twists and turns as he seeks to evade capture by the ruthless policeman who gave him his papers of release. The film stars Hugh Jackman in the leading role of Jean Valjean, supported by Russell Crowe as the ruthless Inspector Javert, Anne Hathaway as the tragic Fantine, Amanda Seyfried as his adoptive daughter Cosette, Eddie Redmayne as her love interest Marius, Aaron Tveit as the revolutionary Enjolras, Sacha Baron Cohen as the corrupt innkeeper Thénardier, Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thénardier, and Samantha Barks as their doomed daughter Eponine. The iconic music of the stage musical is brought to life in this award-winning film. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Jackman) and wins for Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Supporting Actress for Anne Hathaway.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The biggest knocks against Les Mis come in the form of its live recorded music and Tom Hooper’s directorial flourishes, both of which may or may not work for you. Hooper’s directorial style tends toward the use of fish-eye lenses, rapid camera movements to enhance drama, and near melodramatic imagery that feels more akin to Renaissance paintings than film scenes at times. Fish-eye lenses have been employed by other acclaimed directors at various times, and I personally didn’t take much issue with their use in this film, so I’ll give him a pass for that. Given the scope of the film’s inspiration – the novel and the musical – I also think that the bombastic nature of some of the shots feels fairly well earned in this case. However, there is some merit to critiquing Hooper’s excess of movement in scenes that could otherwise have been still. For such a dramatic and tragic film, the camerawork rarely allows the audience to sit in those moments of tragedy for long – jumping between close-ups on faces even in the most mournful of moments. I do think that the film’s emotional resonance still lands for me, but some audiences might find themselves taken out of the film’s most intense scenes by the somewhat frantic pace that Hooper attempts to set.
As for the vocal performances, they end up being hit and miss. Because they are live recordings, the flaws and breaks in each actor’s voice can be clearly heard, leading to inconsistencies in a film whose entirety is taken up by sung dialogue (there’s something like five lines of unsung dialogue in the whole film). The biggest trespasser in this particular area is Russell Crowe as Javert. The man is not a singer, and even when singing next to the other lesser voices in the cast, his flaws are the most noteworthy. Jackman, though a fairly trained singer in his own right, seems to be singing in a register that he’s not perfectly comfortable with for most of Valjean’s biggest numbers. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a really great acting performance, just not necessarily highlighted by the singing.) Seyfried and Redmayne are passable, but again, their acting outshines their vocals fairly consistently. There are bright spots in the vocals as well, but I feel like I can’t talk about the 2012 Les Mis without mentioning the vocal missteps.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Let’s look at those vocal performances worth highlighting to start. Aaron Tveit shines as the best male vocalist in the film as Enjolras, delivering a musical performance that reminds audiences of his talents as a stage performer. His acting remains fairly strong as well, playing the tragic revolutionary with a level of passion that drives the others in his scenes up to his level. Were Samantha Barks’s performance of “On My Own” filmed better, she might also have been in line for Best Supporting Actress. Her vocals in all of her songs, but that one especially, outshine everyone else in the back half of the film, and her ability to emote so passionately while singing makes her hopeless romantic that much more tragic as her story unfolds. At the end of the day, though, it’s still Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine that outshines all the others, and that’s for three main reasons. For one, her singing of “I Dreamed a Dream” is one of the only scenes in the film with zero cuts, allowing the audience to bask in the impact of the other two reasons. She sings with an incredible amount of emotion that lands gut punch after gut punch to the audience, breaking them down and engaging their empathy and sympathy at increasing levels as her scenes progress. Finally, that girl can act like few others when she wants to, and it’s clear in this film that she wanted to. Fantine’s descent into the dregs of society feels all the more unjust because of her powerfully dynamic performance over her few minutes of screentime. It’s a performance that continues to stand the test of time.
The other major contributor to the success of Les Mis has to be its unforgettable soundtrack of iconic songs and the story that they tell. When you combine the emotional resonance of music with the devastating impact of poverty, broken criminal justice systems, and a government that turns a blind eye to both, you get a film that’s going to stick in the collective memory of moviegoers for years to come. Just in my own class of high schoolers when the film released, I’m pretty sure the film went triple platinum. We made vines of the music (RIP Vine), fan-casted each other into the film’s various roles, and talked about it more than just about any film I can remember (besides possibly Inception). For real, this film was Hamilton long before Lin’s musical hit the zeitgeist. The emotional resonance remains years later, though, as I am still impacted by the story that unfolds as we see the injustice occurring time and again, contrasting with the message of mercy that Valjean carries with him, reminding me of society’s need for people who refuse to be bowed by injustice even to the point of death. It’s a poignant film that remains all the more impactful eleven years later.
The emotional and thematic resonance of the music and story of Les Misérables are amplified by some strong performances from its supporting cast to make it into a truly iconic film deserving of recognition among the Greatest Films of All Time. Some of the creative choices made by the director, including the decision to have all the actors recorded live, hold it back from being a perfect film for all audiences, but those who enjoy such stories and musicals are sure to be satisfied when the credits roll on this one. You can currently rent this film on most streaming services if you’d like to catch it in the near future.
