[Films] Les Misérables

I've been a fan of musical theatre for quite some time. I blame my Mum personally. She's a keen amateur dramatist, and on many occasions as a child I was taken to watch her performing in shows. That led to a fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan which is by no means shared by some of my more musical friends! As a family we also used to travel to London quite a bit, and would often visit the theatres to see shows on the big stage. Possibly Disney had an influence as well; all of their classic animated films are, after all, musicals, and have some fantastic songs in them.

A few years ago now my girlfriend and I went to see the London-based stage production of Les Misérables. It was a fantastic experience, and when I discovered that a film version was being made I was incredibly excited. The cast list was brilliant, the director had a great track record, and the trailers looked as if the atmosphere had been captured perfectly. But did it actually live up to my expectations?

Official poster for the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables. (Credit: huffingtompost.com)

In a word: yes. Yes it did. This was a glorious film, and truly captured the atmosphere and spirit of the stage production. Everything that the trailer led me to hope for came true.

As I suspected, the casting was spot on. Going into the film my only slight worry was Russell Crowe as Javert. I was concerned that we’d get another Pierce Brosnan from Mamma Mia (i.e. horrendous), but I thought that he did an excellent job. The part of Javert is pitched quite low, and for most of the score utilises only a limited selection of notes to represent Javert’s unrelenting, unimaginative character. This played to Crowe’s strengths, but he also performed well during Javert’s big solo piece, which is a bit more tuneful. Hugh Jackman has performed in stage musicals before, so I was expecting him to be good. He certainly was, but I have to confess that during a couple of the numbers, particularly “Bring him home”, I found his pronounced vibrato rather grating. Apart from that though he rose to the occasion admirably, and his performance was a masterpiece of emotive acting.

Hugh Jackman's performance is a masterpiece of acting through song, and

he perfectly captures the nuances of the character of Jean Valjean. (Credit: beyondhollywood.com)

The rest of the cast were equally as spectacular. Eponine was played by Samantha Barks, who also performed the part during the 25^th anniversary concert. She was even better on this occasion, and her big solo ("On my own") was a piece of beauty. I have to admit that I’ve always found Eponine a more engaging, well rounded character than Cosette, and that was true on this occasion as well. Not that Cosette was poor; Amanda Seyfried, who I thought was good in Mamma Mia, was great and had the perfect looks and voice for the part. And what more can be said about Anne Hathaway. The fact that she earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a character who’s in barely a quarter of the film says it all really.

The other surprises to me (other than how good Russell Crowe was) were the Thénardiers and Marius. Sacha Baron-Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter fit the part of the comic relief to a tee, and their rendition of “Master of the House” was one of the highlights of the film. Eddie Redmayne as Marius also impressed me a great deal. I was confident in his acting ability after watching Birdsong last year on the BBC, but again he proved himself an excellent singer and perfectly portrayed the emotional journey that Marius is forced to go through.

These two add some much needed comic relief. I love how they keep popping

up throughout the story. (Credit: tumblr.com/thenardiers)

From a cinematography and costume point of the view the film was stunning, although I would comment that there were an awful lot of extreme close ups of the actors’ faces. In a normal film this would be fine, but given that they were all singing live on set this led to some, shall we say, less than flattering shots. The sound effects were excellent; the crack as Javert hits the weir when he commits suicide at the end of the film was a chilling moment. For me, the only slight hiccough arose from a vagary of converting a stage production to film. The end of the first half is “One day more”, my favourite song in the entirety of Les Misérables. This song ends with all of the main characters intertwining their individual themes, before they and the chorus reach a rousing climax of sound. On stage this is immediately followed by the curtain falling, but in the film everything of course continues on. Slightly odd, but not much could be done.

In the end, if you’re a fan of musical theatre then you should definitely go and see this film. You won’t regret it.

(Credit: vancouverobserver.com)