GRADE: A
Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne
Hathaway, Samnatha Barks, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena
Bonham Carter and Eddie Redmayne
Based
on the novel by Victor Hugo
Music
and Lyrics by Claude-Michel
Schönberg & Alain
Boublil
Screenplay by William Nicholson
Additional text by James Fenton
For a Broadway musical, the transition
from stage to screen is not always pleasant. For every Chicago
there is The Producers, and a light, relative newbie like
Hairspray can be a hit while, for all the hype, a venerable old
legend like Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera can
come crashing down at the box office like a crystal chandelier, and
Rent can . . . no, there's no
way I can get away with that comment, so just forget it.
As
such, the fate of Les Miserables,
one of Broadway's most beloved institutions and arguable the most
cinematic stage musical ever produced, has been a gigantic question
mark, especially as to whether the casting of major Hollywood stars
in a musical associated with powerhouse voices was going to be a
disastrous choice. I'm actually quite fond of Gerard Butler's acting
in Phantom, but
there's no denying that he's hardly an angel of music. And then there
was the choice made by director Tom Hooper to record all of the songs
live, which has not been done since At Long Last Love,
Peter Bogdanovich's infamous
debacle featuring Burt Reynolds and Cybil Shepherd crooning old Cole
Porter hits. On the other hand, this is a great piece of material, an
Oscar Winning Director, and a tremendous group of actors,
if not proven singers for the most part. As such, Les Miserables
has been the biggest wild card of the Oscar season.
Fortunately,
the elements come together for a winning hand.
Jean
Valjean (Hugh Jackman) a Frenchman imprisoned for stealing bread, has
broken his parole and must flee from police Inspector Javert (Russell
Crowe). The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and after two decades
on the run, Valjean finds himself in the midst of the 1832 June
Rebellion in Paris. Along the way Valjean meets Fantine (Anne
Hathaway), a tragic figure who is forced into a life of prostitution
to pay to support the daughter she doesn't even know; the
Thenardier's (Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham-Carter), a
loathsome couple who have had custody of Fantine's daughter, Cosette,
and Cossette herself, whom he adopts. Then finally he falls in with a
group of young revolutionaries, one of whom is destined to become his
son in law.
The
film gets off to a bit of a shaky start, and it takes a while to
settle in. Some dialogue has been added and somelyrics changed in
order to provide clarity for the unititiated, and while it's probably
a a good choice, it's a bit jarring for those of us who have the
musical memorized. Hooper also makes an usual choice in shooting the
lion's share of the film in close ups, which is an odd approach for
such an epic tale, but a brilliant one for an emotional, character
based story. This technique works best for Hathaway's unforgettable
rendition of “I Dreamed A Dream,” which is shot almost entirely
in one take, and is filled with so much emotion, poignancy and truth
that it easily the most riveting movie moment of 2012. While many
Broadway stars have over milked this song to the point where it had
become in danger of losing it's power, Hathaway infuses it with a
heartbreaking sense of reality that is so overwhelming it makes you
think she could make a musical version of Schindler's List
work. Hathaway and Samantha
Barks as Eponine fair best from a vocal standpoint (Barks was the
lone Broadway cast member chosen to reprise her role on screen), but
there are other terrific performances, and by the time we get to Hooper glorious staging "The Confrontation" the film has you completely hooked.
Hugh
Jackman, as many well know, especially after his rather awkward turn
as an Oscar host, was a musical theatre actor long before he was
Wolverine, and it's about time someone cast him in a major musical.
But whether the role of Jean Valjean was within his range was a
subject for a doubt, and frankly, for the first forty minutes of the
film Jackman seems to be doubting himself, choosing to focus far more
on acting the role than singing it, and he struggles with a few notes
along the way. But when he hits stride, he really
his his stride, and by the time he gets to “Bring Him Home,” he
has left any doubts behind. Jackman has shown star power for over a
decade, but with the exception of the underrated Austrailia,
it's taken this long for him to step out of the shadow of Wolverine
and get a really memorable role in a genuinely good film.
But
the far bigger question was Russell Crowe as Javert. The former king
of Oscar-land has hit hard times, and even when he was on top his
position as front man for a mediocre band, 30 Odd Foot Of
Grunts, hardly qualified him as
a great singer. Crowe wisely chooses to play it safe, keeping never
trying to overreach his abilities, and as such never reaches the
surprising moments of greatness or the abysmal moments of failure
that Butler did as the Phantom.
Fortunately, if there is one lead character that can get away with
substituting presence for polish, it's Javert, and the stone face
that never masks the conflict and anguish in his eyes works very
well. It's not Crowe's best film performance, but it's a respectable
one, and in fact, the brilliant sequence where Javert walks
precariously on a ledge, balancing himself high above Paris while in
constant danger of falling over the edge while singing “Stars,”
is the second best scene in the film. Eddie Redmayne makes such a
strong impression as Marius that Nick Jonas and Ricky Martin
reportedly both melted in a slimy puddle of hair gel and mediocrity
upon watching it, and Amanda Seyfried makes as memorable a Cosette as
I've ever seen. That's not to overly praise Seyfried. I've never seen
a truly memorable Cosette; the biggest failure of this musical has
always been the fact that Cosette pales in comparison to Eponine and
it's hard to see what is so special about her. But Seyfried, far from
one of my favorite actresses, does a credible job and William
Nicholson's screenplay does it's best to strengthen the relationship
between father and daughter, amd there is a genuine chemistry between
the two.
Faring
worst are Baron Cohen and Bonham-Carter, who to be fair, have been
given difficult roles that barely work on stage and simply do not
translate to film. The Thenardier's are two disgusting to be funny
and two silly to be scary, and between Bonham-Carter total lack of
singing ability (previosuly showcased in Sweeney Todd)
and Baron Cohen's tentative, almost bored performance, they are
easily the biggest misfire in the film. They aren't terrible, by any
means, they just fail to shine. But perhaps the most endearing
performance comes from young Daniel Huttlestone as Gavroche, who
really steals the whole movie.
But
ultimately, the film belongs to Hooper, to the music and the story,
all of which take on a epic journey that hits a few rough spots along
the way but ultimately ends in triumph. This should not be viewed as
the definitive production of Les Miserables,
but rather as a bold and interesting staging of one of the greatest
musical of all time that leaves room for many more viewings of the
live version, but will also proudly preserve it as a film for the
ages.
Les Miserables
is rated PG-13 for violence, sexuality, vulgarity, profanity, and
adult themes.
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