Les Miserables: The Movie Musical!

 

Ok……so, a few posts ago I said that it’s always better to stay excited about something than to actually have the thing you’re excited about, that way you can never be disappointed by it, and I was right! Nothing will ever be as good as you want it to be! Especially when everyone has hyped it up to a level it can never live up to. 

Seriously, this movie was talked about like it was going to be the greatest movie ever made, and it wasn’t, it was simply another adaptation of Les Miserables.

Don’t misunderstand, I still thought it was awesome, but it wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be.

Oddly, I’m really struggling to say anything about it, to be honest I think I’ve said everything I can possibly say about Les Miserables already in this blog! I already knew the story, I already knew the songs before I came into this movie, there really wasn’t anything new this movie brought to the table, so is there really anything left to say?

Fine, I’ll try anyway.

I’m going to start off with talking about the performances, (Do I really need to talk about the story? I think everyone knows that by now). There were some great performances in this film, especially from the lead actors. Hugh Jackman was a very good Valjean; in fact I think he’s become my favourite Valjean I’ve seen so far. The man can sing! But I always knew that because I know he has a musical background so I always knew he was going to be good. I just loved his whole performance though, the way he went from being the mean ex-convict to a loving father was just perfect, there was nothing bad about his performance at all, I loved him.  That new song they wrote for him when he’s just adopted Cosette was lovely, and he sung it so well. I’m not sure it was absolutely necessary for the film though. That’s all I’m saying about that, take it or leave it! I never said I was any good at reviewing things did I!

Russell Crowe as Javert………you know he was the one I was most worried about because from the clips I saw before the movie came out he really didn’t sound very good, but actually he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was going to be. To be fair though he really didn’t sound like he was ever giving it his all, but he wasn’t terrible. I’ve never claimed to be an expert in musical theatre, I’ve never claimed to know about singing, but I know what’s supposed to sound good, and he really wasn’t that bad! Put it this way, he wasnt as bad as Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia. Although no one could be as bad as him!

Anne Hathaway as Fantine, I really love Anne Hathaway as an actor, in fact I’ve had a crush on her since I was 14, (Don’t laugh at me!) And I thought her performance in this movie was just heart-breaking, HOWEVER!  She was perhaps the performer in this movie who was hyped up the most, and I’m not sure she really lived up to it. Her big song for instance, “I dreamed a dream” was done very well, I’ve only ever heard it done by someone who sung it in a pretty way, I’d never really listened to the lyrics before until I heard Anne sing it with such depth and emotion, it was nice to hear it done differently than usual and it was nice to really think about the song and what she’s actually singing about, but was it really any better than any other version I’ve heard? In my opinion, no, not really. Was it award worthy?..........................no I don’t think so either, but I’m betting it will win an Oscar* because the academy has always been a sucker for a sob story, and if you’re willing to lose your hair for a performance you might as well get a gold statue out of it, so good luck to you Anne!

Amanda Seyfried as Cosette. Why did I pick on Amanda so much in the run up to this movie? I was a fool. The girl actually has a very nice voice; I thought she sounded quite lovely in fact. But you know what, I’d forgotten how little Cosette has to do in this musical that it was actually irrelevant in the end whether she could sing or not! The girl playing young Cosette had more to do than Amanda (By the way she was so adorable, I wanted to adopt her myself!), Cosettes only purpose in this film is to look pretty and fall in love, the singing part is superfluous when you think about it. Cosette is still my favourite character though, I’m just not really sure why!

The Thenardiers were hilarious as usual, I’m not really a fan of Sacha Baren Cohen but he was very good as Thenardier, and so funny. I’m not really a fan of Helena Bonham Carter either, although I have seen a lot of her films, though that’s probably just because she’s in everything! She's actually quite interesting as an actor, just comparing her performance in this to her performance in the last film I saw her in “The Kings Speech” is quite remarkable. She can play the very best of people and the very worst of people perfectly, the woman is a chameleon!

I still have a real problem with the Thenardiers as the comic relief of the musical though, I just can’t get past how horrible they are in the novel, I don’t really like the fact that two child abusers can be made into comedic roles, but I believe I brought that up early on in this blog so I won’t elaborate on that any further.

Samantha Barks as Eponine was also very good, although since she played Eponine in one of the stage versions I saw so there wasn’t really anything new she brought to the role, I will say this though, she’s gotten a lot skinnier since the last time I saw her! She did not look healthy at all in this movie, her singing was excellent though and her death scene was actually really sad, I liked how they made it more like how she died in the book too.

Actually now I’ve brought that up I’ll talk about that. I loved all the little aspects of the novel that crept into the movie, like Valjean buying Cosette a doll, Marius’s grandfather actually making an appearance, the convent, Marius trying to blow up the barricades, Grantaire dying with Enjolras (Spoilers!) It was awesome! I invested a lot of time in that bloody novel last year; it was nice to see things I recognised from it!

As for the film in general, I think there were a few problems with it. For starters the pacing was all over the place, in the beginning it just hits you and hits you really quickly, and then in the middle it slows down so much its almost unbearable. It really slows down when Marius and Cosette get together for the first time, I’m sorry, the two of them are sweet kids but dear God in heaven their plotline is boring! And no one can fall in love that fast! It’s ridiculous!!! There really is nothing worse than teenagers in love, except when they sing about it. Also everything about Fantine was done way too fast, it felt like her downfall was all done in one day; there was no time to breathe at all between her scenes.
For a performance that was hyped up beyond belief she was in it for such a small amount of time that by the end of the film I’d forgotten she was even a character, in fact that’s true about every version of Les Miserable I’ve seen so far, I always forget about Fantine.

By the way, WHY was it that when Fantine came back in the end of the movie she still had the short hair? I wanted to see her beautiful again, I was looking forward to that! It didn’t make sense that she would look like that, I thought that scene was supposed to be her and Valjean going to a better place, so why wouldn’t she be at her most beautiful again? That really pissed me off actually!

Sorry I got a bit angry there…………………Anyway, the sets looked fantastic in this movie, although I would have liked to have seen a bit more of them. Everything was done in such close ups I barely noticed there was any set most of the time, why bother spending so much money on sets and scenery if you’re not going to even show it? There was some lovely scenery in it, especially at the beginning, but they barely let you see it for longer than a second. I’ve never been an expert in cinematography (Which is why I was never a good film student) but why not let your audience see all the work that’s been put in a movie? 

I’m not sure some of the songs quite worked as well on a screen as they do on the stage, “One day more” works a lot better in my opinion when you can see everyone all at once, I’m not sure cutting away to each person was as effective, and that’s my favourite song out of the whole thing so I was really looking forward to seeing it on the screen, I was a little bit disappointed by it if I’m honest. It was still awesome though so I won’t complain too much about it.

Most of the songs that are group songs were a lot better in this film than the solos, I was a lot more drawn into the whole thing when groups were singing, it felt a lot more dramatic. The lads singing “Red and Black” all together was one of my favourite parts of the whole movie, if that doesn’t make you want to join a revolution then you really are dead inside my friends!

In the end though I still loved this movie even though it wasn’t everything I had hoped it would be. I guess I just thought everything would be bigger and grander than it was. I think I just expected too much from it, that was the problem. It’s just that I spent a lot of time last year reading the novel and finding out everything I possibly could about Les Miserables I just wanted this to be something really special, but like I said, it was simply just another adaptation, nothing more.

Still I really loved it and I’ve seen it four times already since it came out, I intend to see it another six times too.

 
* I wrote this review before the 2013 Oscars were given out and now that they've been and gone i just want to say Congratulations Anne Hathaway on winning your Oscar.