Les Miserables isn't a good movie because of the acting, singing or score. Anne Hathaway is excellent, as is Hugh Jackson, but except for Samantha Barks nobody else ruled. Certainly not for Tom "The King's Speech" Hooper direction which seems to have zero sense of movie musicals, everything in tight close up of folks singing their lungs out. No, it is a good movie because it is based up Victor Hugo's great "Les Miserables". To my shame I have only just begun reading it for the first time and this brilliant historical novel about the 1832 June Rebellion where the Republicans were crushed by the Monarchists, is already up there with Tolstoy's "War And Peace". "Les Miz" was published in 1862 (30 years after the Rebellion), "War And Peace" in 1869. Literature isn't this great any more, it's not like music (though the weakness of the modern pop album is due to a similar cause), we lost the time for it, we have too many distractions and because we don't have the readers we lost the writers.
That's not a digression, that's my review.
I caught "Les Miz" twice on Broadway and left after an hour both times. But with nothing to do Christmas Day, I battered down the hatches and finished the movie off. The first half is a bore and the score is really pretty lousy, "Man Of The House", "Empty Chairs At Empty Tables" and, especially the end of "Epilogue" do the job, and the score is heavy and triumphant and the book is a smart condensing of the novel, both by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, who never came closer than "Miss Saigon" to another hit. Certainly if, say, "South Pacific" makes it on its songs, "Les Miz" does not come close.
The story of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread, breaks paroled and hounded by the dogged Police Inspector Javert (a terrible and miscast Russel Crowe). Along the way he picks up an orphan Cosette and finds himself in the midst of the June Uprising that, while defeated, lead the way to the birth of Democracy in France.
Sacha Baron Cohen and Helen Bonham Carter, as something like comic relief (the longer they go, the less funnier and the more scary they become) are both good and Anne Hathaway is very very good as Cosette's mother who leaves the child in Valjean's care before promptly dying, is especially good. Hooper recorded the songs live and attempted orchestration afterwards, a decision that pays off always but especially on Hathaway's "I Dreamed A Dream".
But Amanda Seyfried is terrible as the adult Cosette and Eddie Redmayne has zero chemistry as the love interest. It is a huge problem and it nearly foils everything else in the movie.
The story saves it, Victor Hugo saves the lousy music and the lousy acting and the odd lack of hugeness to a huge story (they didn't do much of a job of opening it up from the stage at all). The book is a thriller and a dream, an important historic masterpiece, just about the only account of the June Uprising. Apparently, it can survive anything.
Movie – Grade: B+
Music – Grade: C-