The 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables has been savaged by some critics, and even its positive reviews were often less than glowing, but I don’t get it at all. It’s the wildly successful and very well-received stage musical, on the big screen, with real settings and backdrops, and great performances of great songs. (Roger Ebert seemed to dislike the movie in part because it’s not a faithful adaptation of the book, but that was never the intent – it’s an adaptation of the musical, an almost straight one with one short song added and virtually nothing else.) Musicals are not to everyone’s tastes, and you have to enter them willing to have people sing much or all of their dialogue at you for two-plus hours, but if you respect the musical film as its own art form, Les Misérables is among the best.
I have seen the musical, twice, the last time in 1993, and enjoyed it tremendously. The show opened in London in 1985 to generally negative reviews, and 27 years later is still playing in the West End, with the show set to return to Broadway next year for its third run on top of the over 7000 performances already enacted. It won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, when it debuted in 1987. And, in my experience, it’s one of the great “love-to-hate” works in the creative arts of my lifetime, where there’s a certain inexplicable pride in disliking something so popular. I’m not in that camp; despite the two-decade gap, I still remembered all of the songs and probably half of the words. But I liked the music, and like it even more today because it has a veneer of nostalgia for me; if you don’t like the music, you’re going to really dislike the film – and the play.
The story centers on the French convict Jean Valjean, who did 19 years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread and evading arrest. He gains his freedom at the start of the film, undergoes a transformation when a priest takes pity on him, and devotes his life to doing good for the less fortunate, becoming a successful businessman who employs many workers from the margins of French society. He encounters a prostitute, Fantine, who is ill and being harassed by a john; when Valjean discovers that Fantine was sacked from his factory, he resolves to help her and to raise her daughter, Cosette, who is in the “care” of the comically crooked Thenardiers. Through each stage of Valjean’s life, he is pursued by the policeman Javert, a cold, heartless man who sees no room for mercy within the law, a pursuit that repeatedly puts Valjean into situations where he must choose between sacrifice and self-preservation. The film’s climax revolves around the failed student revolutions of 1832, where the teenaged Cosette falls in love with the student leader Marius, who is friendly with the Thenardiers’ daughter, Eponine; her love for Marius remains unrequited as the tables from her childhood are turned. The ill-fated revolution puts Marius in harm’s way, during which Valjean manages to save him and have one final encounter with Javert.
Director Tom Hooper made the semi-controversial decision to have his actors sing live on the set rather than dubbing studio versions of the songs on to the film afterwards, but the move gives the film a tremendous rawness suited to the time and themes of the movie, and also avoids the always-jarring shift from live audio to studio recordings. (They do this at least once an episode on Top Chef with Padma, and it always sounds wrong.) The move also allows Hugh Jackman to show off an immense singing voice in a performance that could have carried the movie on its own; while Daniel Day-Lewis is considered the lock for Best Actor for Lincoln, I don’t think his role was as difficult as Jackman’s nor was his performance as huge. Les Misérables is over the top, by design, and Jackman has to fill space to meet those requirements. He does, without fail, aging 20 years from the movie’s start to finish while his character undergoes the most significant changes of any in the film.
Anne Hathaway has received much-deserved praise for her turn as Fantine in a supporting role – she’s dead before the halfway point, sorry – and a performance of the musical’s best-known song, “I Dreamed a Dream,” that should leave audiences in the fetal position. (You might also know that song as the coming-out tune for the Scottish singer Susan Boyle.) Hathaway’s was just the most notable of several supporting performances in Les Misérables, however, as the narrative seems to have focused on her and Jackman while ripping Russell Crowe (more on him in a moment) and ignoring everyone else. Helena Bonham-Carter appears as herself Mme. Thenardier, with Sacha Baron Cohen as her husband and the two of them chewing the scenery as the film’s main comic relief, the thieving, amoral, unhygienic inkeepers who scheme right up to the end of the film. Eponine, whose “On My Own” is another heartbreaking ballad (it’s actually a pretty tragic story for most of the characters), gets a tremendous rendition by the Manx singer Samantha Barks in her first film role, although she’d played the character on the stage for several months before the film was made. TV actor Aaron Tveit usurps Marius (played by Eddie Redmayne) in several scenes as the even more fervent revolutionary Enjolras, with Tveit commanding the camera more easily despite the same silly foppish hairstyle as his fellow tourists.
Crowe has been hammered for his mediocre singing in the film, somewhat unfairly – he’s the worst, yes, because someone has to be, but his poor singing didn’t detract from the film at all, and his performance as Javert was cold because Javert is cold, a pre-Terminator of sorts who sees only black and white. I thought Amanda Seyfried, while as pretty as ever, was just as weak a link and also not a particularly strong singer, but she’s received none of the same wrath as far as I can see. Cosette is the worst-written of the major characters in the musical as well – Eponine, as the tragic figure, is much more interesting and gets that one knockout song, while Cosette just flutters along, gets the boy she wants, and they live happily ever after.
Seeing the stage musical brought to life with real sets and closer views of the action was a thrill, since I saw the play from the cheap seats, but the cinematography in the film version was a real weakness, remarked on even in many positive reviews I’ve seen. I noticed it most during two of the film’s chase sequences involving Javert and Valjean, as well as the advance of the French soldiers when they begin their assault on the student barricades – the camerawork was shaky, uneven, and often angled oddly, while we are treated to far more closeups than we ever needed, especially of wide-open mouths going all fortissimo on us. That said, Hooper and company were up to the challenge of presenting ensemble numbers sung by characters in different locations, easy to do on the stage (you only have so much room) but harder on film, such as in “One Day More,” which could easily become a confused mess but holds together just enough to get us to the finish.
What may bother critics who disliked the film is its inherent populist feel. The songs are all written to move the viewer emotionally – tragic numbers, rousing numbers, comic numbers, even the cloying “Castle on a Cloud” sung by the neglected child Cosette. The story has a strong theme of redemption, with many references to God and religion, as did the original novel
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That concludes my run through the Best Picture nominees, as I’ve seen all but Amour and am choosing to skip that one. It has no chance to win, apparently, but I’d still vote for Zero Dark Thirty for Best Picture, with Ang Lee my choice for Best Director for Life of Pi. I have only seen three nominees in each of the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories, but I’d vote for Jackman and Hathaway, respectively. I’m hoping to see at least one or two more nominated performances before the awards are handed out next Sunday.
, later adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein into a Pulitzer- and Tony-award-winning musical, which later became a hit movie*. The stories in the collection are connected, so while there’s no single narrative through the series (aside from World War II itself, a fairly compelling plot even sixty-plus years later), characters appear in multiple stories and you couldn’t read them out of sequence without missing some history or the occasional inside reference. They’re interesting, often funny, frequently romantic (in the classical sense, not in the Harlequin sense), but nothing Michener wrote could compete with his concise recap of the assault on the (fictional) island of Kuralei and the brief story that follows it, as the narrator walks through the cemetery that holds the fallen from that battle.
, which is excellent through the first 100 pages.
DVD for my daughter for Christmas – not among my favorite movies, but she loves all the songs the kids sing, and I have to admit that the bonus feature with all seven child actors reunited for the 40th anniversary of the film is awesome – but that spurred me to post a list I’ve meant to throw out there for a while: My own ten favorite musicals.
(not enough of a musical), Brigadoon (good movie but the songs didn’t grab me), and Yankee Doodle Dandy (too long by half). One movie I have not seen that makes all of these lists is Cabaret. You’ll also notice that fatherhood has influenced this list quite a bit.
. Probably my daughter’s all-time favorite movie, to the point where she heard a Julie Andrews song from the soundtrack of Camelot and shouted, “That sounds like Mary Poppins!” There’s enough humor for adults here and some strong visual effects, as well as a few songs that you still know by heart whether or not you want to, plus a performance from Arthur Treacher as the Constable, which makes me laugh just because of the fast-food chain that still bears his name. Best song: When my daughter was smaller, I’d swing her all around to “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.”
. It still amazes me that the huge success of this movie didn’t spur a new run of musicals from Hollywood, but apparently only Baz Luhrmann has the balls – or the good sense – to capitalize on the market for musical films. I thought the movie was incredibly creative in its reworking of pop songs into key plot elements, with lots of silliness and some very good performances by Ewan Macgregor, Nicole Kidman, and several of the supporting players. Best song: “Your Song.”
. A sentimental favorite, since I’ve been singing “You’re Easy to Dance With” to my daughter since she was a few days old. The plot is silly – it’s an excuse to sing a bunch of holiday-themed songs, and it features perhaps the worst business model ever depicted in any movie: a hotel that only opens on holidays. There’s also an unfortunate blackface scene that’s woven into the plot, so if you watch the movie without it, a thin story gets thinner and a few lines won’t make sense, but watching the original version will have you cringing. Fred Astaire’s July 4th number is one of his best dances in any film. Best song: “You’re Easy to Dance With.”
. Two iconic dance scenes make this movie: Fred Astaire dancing with a hatstand, and Astaire dancing on the ceiling. He had surprising chemistry with Jane Powell, a new partner for him who turned out to be perfect for some of the slapsticky numbers in the Astaire’s love interest is played by Sarah Churchill, daughter of Winston, although I found the idea that Astaire’s character would be smitten with her a little tough to swallow. Best song: “How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I’ve Been A Liar All My Life,” a rare comic-dance number for Astaire, and later a 
. A little more story and better music than Holiday Inn, and the film avoids any racist undertones by sticking to an all-white cast. (Lest anyone get the wrong idea, that’s sarcasm.) Danny Kaye doesn’t have Fred Astaire’s dancing chops but is better with physical comedy, and Vera-Ellen was a much better dancer than either of the female leads in Holiday Inn. The film’s climax, while just as absurd as everything that leads up to it, has a lot of heart. Best song: “White Christmas.”
. A cult favorite that should have been a bigger hit, made on a shoestring budget with a plot that fit on the back of a napkin, it’s carried by two great performances and a heavy emphasis on realistic dialogue. It’s magical without magic other than the magic of music. Best song: “Falling Slowly.”
. I’ve certainly made enough references to this movie in chats and on Twitter, but I have to admit I thought it was dumb the first time I saw it; it took a second viewing for me to realize how witty the movie is and the way it straddles the line between admiration and parody of the small-town Iowa culture of writer Meredith Wilson’s upbringing. The film’s vernacular is unique and comical – “You watch your phraseology!” – and the use of a barbershop quartet as actual characters in the film (they play the school board) instead of just props who sing was another nice touch. The only negative for me is that Shirley Jones gets stuck with three dud ballads, making her character boring next to all the fun that Robert Preston’s Harold Hill gets to have. Best song: “Wells Fargo Wagon,” although I imagine the most popular pick would be “Seventy-Six Trombones.”
. Take a great play (Pygmalion) by a great playwright (Shaw) and add the most beautiful actress in the history of motion pictures (Audrey Hepburn) and a handful of memorable songs and you have the shortest three-hour movie ever made. Stanley Holloway, as Eliza Doolittle’s ne’er-do-well father, is a scene-stealer and gets the two funniest songs in the film. A remake is supposedly in the works, which strikes me as a brazen money-grab and a terrible idea, as movies like this should never, ever be subject to the indignity of a remake. Best song: “With a Little Bit of Luck.”
. The granddaddy of musicals, including no end of outstanding dance numbers – the title track, “Moses Supposes,” and “Good Morning” – a great comedy number from Donald O’Connor in “Make ‘Em Laugh,” and an actual plot aside from the standard-issue romance. The silent film era comes to an abrupt end and the characters, mostly silent-film stars, have to adapt to life in the talkies, which proves very difficult for Jean Hagen’s Lina Lamont, whose voice is like nails on a chalkboard and who mistakenly believes that the film studio’s marketing angle about a romance between her and Gene Kelly’s character has some basis in fact. Kelly, a raging perfectionist as a dancer, was at his peak here, and while he reportedly drove costar Debbie Reynolds to tears, the “Good Morning” number still amazes me every time I watch it. Best song: “Singin’ in the Rain.”
, and I can’t recommend it enough.