Les Mini series: Thoughts on Part 3

You know...it's been seven years since I first read Les Miserables and even after reading that huge fucking tome and watching several movie adaptations, and seeing it live, I never knew that Madame Thenardiers first name was Rosalie. Has it ever been mentioned before? I think this is the first time she's ever had a first name. I don't remember it being said in the book at all, I always assumed her first name was just Madame.

Even after 3 episodes now I still haven’t decided whether or not I actually like this miniseries yet. I think there’s some good parts to it and there are some parts that are lacking. I think if I was pressed on the issue I would say “yes, I like it, but…”. Which is basically me saying that I like it but I have some issues with it. That’s true of every adaptation I’ve seen though, there’s nothing yet that even comes close to the book in terms or greatness.

So part three was basically the part from the book which is my favourite and that’s where Valjean finally rescues Cosette from the Thenardiers and they live together in Paris for a while, before moving to the convent…..Oh dear God…the convent…..

Sorry, I’m remembering the convent from the book…*SHUDDERS*

There’s something I meant to bring up about Cosette last week but I forgot, I thought they would explain it this week actually but they didn’t and it’s about the whole passage of time in which Cosette is with the Thenardiers. In the book she’s supposed to have been there for six years but in this adaptation they make it look like Fantine leaves her, moves to Montfermeil, gets a job, gets fired, becomes a prostitute and then dies all within a matter of weeks. There was no real attempt at making it look like any time had passed and I found that kind of lazy.
I mean I know they can’t show all the 6 years in a one hour episode but just a caption to say what year it was would have helped.
In this episode they did try at least, after Fantine dies there’s a space of two years before Valjean gets to rescue her. Which is true to the book actually so I appreciate that.

The same goes for showing Valjean and Cosette living together for a while too before going straight to the convent, in the musical that happens on the same night Cosette gets rescued so I appreciated them letting Valjean and Cosette have time together and time to bond as father and daughter. I could have done without the implied paedophilia though from the Thenardiers. I don't appreciate that being implied in any way about Valjeans intentions towards Cosette. I mean it does look fairly shady that Valjean buys Cosette from the Thenardiers but in the book he has a note from Fantine saying that they have to hand her over, so if that had been kept in this adaptation there wouldn't have been any need for it to be creepy like it was. But hey, why do we need actual plot devices when we can just make things gross.
Seriously...we have enough problems with paedophilia in the media, I would like it kept out of Les Miserables please. Valjean is a good man, do not fuck with his character or I will fight you.

I’m not sure how I feel about the kid playing little Cosette though, she was a bit stiff and dead eyed in my opinion, although, after being abused for years I suppose I would expect any kid to be a bit dead eyed. I can’t decide if she played Cosette well or not. I guess I just wanted her to have more of a personality, she was quite cute though so I'm gonna give her a pass. Like I said Cosette is my favourite character but she really has nothing to do so I’m still hoping to see an adaptation where they really flesh out Cosette as a person instead of a plot device. I’ve said it before in this blog; Cosette is a character that nothing happens to, things just happen around her. She's more of a plot device than a person.
Still, I have to give this adaptation credit for having little Cosette swear. I never expected that to come out of her mouth. I actually laughed out loud in my flat when she said “Nosy old bitch”, and I live alone, so it’s weird for me to laugh at something when I’m alone, but I really liked that one line from her. It makes sense though for her to swear a little, I don’t think Victor Hugo ever really considered it but after years of living with the Thenardiers I imagine she probably heard all sorts of profanity, these things leave an impression on children you know Victor. And I still say Cosette wouldn't be just fine after all those years of abuse! You may be a great writer Victor Hugo but you know nothing about child development and child psychology!

Anyway...I think overall this adaptation has been faithful to the book, which is what I was hoping for, but at the end of this episode it kind of went on a different path. I mean the basic elements of the plot were there if you get my drift. Like Valjean took Cosette to the convent, but there was no Fauchelevant the gardener and Valjean had way more interaction with the nuns than he does in the book. I mean I guess this is just to move the plot along and to get rid of anything unnecessary (And yeah I get that not every little thing is necessary, I certainly appreciate them not going with the whole "burying Valjean" scene from the book) but I hope this is as much as they change now, because we're getting to the real meat of the story now and if they change it too much it just wont be Les Miserables any more, it'll just be another lame adaptation that only shares the name of the book.

There was one thing in this episode that I really liked, and it goes back to my point from part one about how all these characters interact without them knowing it. The guy from part two who cut Fantines hair off appeared briefly in this part as the man who sells the doll which Cosette calls Catherine, and I think they were trying to say that Cosettes doll had hair made from her mothers hair. I really like that idea, it's like a weird connection from Fantine to her daughter long after she's dead. I mean they never actually said that it was the same hair, but I think from the lingering shots onto the doll in this episode that that was what they were implying. It's kinda cool really.

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So those were my thoughts on Part 3. I hope I'm making sense, it all makes sense to me but sometimes I think I'm just rambling on and just talking to myself.

Next week I imagine that we'll see more of Marius (Uggggggh!) as we're going to be jumping ahead a few years to when the revolution begins. Just three more episodes to go now people! And don't forget that if you live in the UK you can catch up with the latest episode on BBC iPlayer at the link below.

Les Miserables: Part 3