OK, part one has just aired over here in the UK and my immediate thoughts are....
I LOVED IT!!
It was a bit of a slow start, but I expected that from episode one, remember this is just setting everything up so obviously the start is gonna be a slow burner. Think yourself lucky as viewers though, if you were reading the book Jean Valjean wouldn't have even fucking shown up yet!
But we've now been introduced to the major players. Jean Valjean played by Dominic West, Javert played by David Oyelowo, Fantine played by Lily Collins, and Monsieur Thenardier played by Adeel Akhtar. Plus we had glimpses of little Marius and Cossete, Marius's granddad and father, and of course the Bishop played by Derek Jacobi.
So part one focused a lot on Fantine and her relationship with Felix Tholomyes, who was just as much of an arsehead as I imagined him to be in the book. Still, it was nice to see him portrayed on screen as he's usually written out of any adaptations. He was played well by Johnny Flynn, though I'm not sure it takes a lot out of an actor to just play a drunken dickhead! I'm guessing that's the last we'll see or hear of him in the story so I'm just glad he's gone. His character is an arse and I still cant believe he just left his child to rot....Still men have been playing that trick on women since the dawn of time. They just want sex and they'll promise you the world to get it!
Fantine was a bit of a non character in part one, she's a bit too trusting and silly for me but like I said this is just part one, all the major Fantine parts are gonna come in part two I reckon, that's when everythings gonna turn to hell for her and sadly, that's when her character is the most interesting. She was played well by Lily Collins, but nothing really stood out about her portrayal yet, I'm hoping for more in the next part.
Dominic West was very good so far, though he really doesn't have many lines in part one, mostly right now all Valjean has to do is look dishevelled and angry, but that's what the world has done to him, he's been beaten down so much that he doesn't know how to live in normal society anymore, so I cant fault his portrayal for showing that. Just with Fantine though nothing has really stood out so far from his performance but I'm guessing we'll get more in the next five parts.
If there was anything I didn't like about part one then it was David Oyelowo as Javert. Not for reasons you might think though! (I'm looking at you racist people on tumblr!) It actually doesn't matter to me that he's portrayed by a black man, the first Javert I ever saw on stage was played by a black man so I always sort of think of him as black. I mean I don't know much about the racial climate of France in the 19th century but I don't think it is unreasonable for a black man to have had a job as a a prison guard. My problem with his portrayal is that I think David Oyelowo has too nice a face to really come across as menacing. There was no point in part one where I really took him seriously as a threatening person, I just think the actor looks too nice for the part. Still, I want to give him a chance because this is just the beginning and Javert gets a lot more to do later on.
So basically my thoughts right now is that there is much more to see and part one has set everything up well, It's just a matter of waiting for the real shit to go down now! And if you're familiar with the book then you know that there's a lot of shit to come!
I think the one thing I got most from part one and strangely something I've never really though about before, is how Les Miserables is a tale of a group of people who otherwise would never have met, but their lives have been intertwined over all these years. I think it's great, in fact there was one small part where that showed in this adaptation where Marius's father passed by Fantine and her friends on the street. I think that was my favourite part of the whole episode so far and it probably doesn't mean much to the average viewer, but to me as a fan of the novel that moment sort of epitomised the whole novel in about two seconds.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That was part one then, come back next week for part two. And if you're in the UK you can watch it again at the link below on BBC Iplayer, along with other clips
