Les Misérables Review
I need to get a note from my doctor excusing me from writing this review.
This is the worst kind of review for me to write, if only because it is so out of my realm of experience that I might as well throw a dictionary into a tree shredder and publish whatever comes out the other end. It’s like asking a nuclear physicist to perform brain surgery; he or she may be highly intelligent and well trained in their own field of expertize but at the end of the task all you are left is a big gooey mess and a souvenir skull.
I also hate writing these because they always end up showing the world what an uncultured oaf I secretly am. I am sure I will get a lot of feedback similar to what I got for my review of Tree of Life when I called it a disjointed mass of editing room scraps masquerading as pretentious self indulgent pseudo art (I still stand by that, incidentally. If any of you are screaming Tree of Life fans let me tell you that Terrence Malick masturbated all over your face and you not only didn’t realize it but thanked him for it).
The problem stems from the fact that I am not really a fan of theater. If I am going to sit for two or more hours watching a story why would I not want to go see something with production values and all the bad bits edited out? It seems to me the only reason you would want to see something performed live is because you are hoping to see someone really screw up (kind of like how all Nascar fans secretly hope to see someone killed in a horrible car crash right in front of them). I know they are supposed to be a cornerstone of our culture (well, upper class culture) but unless your kid is in the show I don’t see a real reason to attend (and there is the proof of my cultural oafishness. Feel free to start hate spamming me now, so I can get right on ignoring you. Lincoln image courtesy of the Funny T-Shirt category).
Not to say that this movie is a play. It is a full grown film, with high production values and multiple takes for each scene. It is in fact very pretty and generally well produced. However, I never fell in love with the story as a play and have very little interest in seeing an entire script sung out loud. I don’t mind a musical when the periodic songs are used to enhance the story (Dr. Horrible, for example. I love that show). But this movie has every line of more than three words padded out into a complete musical number to the point I felt like I was drowning in lyrics and struggling for the faintest breath of expository dialog. The phrase “too much of a good thing” plays out well at this point.
The real victim of all the musical numbers is the film pacing. In a normal movie, establishing that the innkeeper and his wife are crooks would be accomplished with a couple of quick pickpocketing or ripping off scenes. Instead we are given an extended duet that keeps showing them doing the same thing over and over again in order to keep the screen moving long enough for the song to play out. It doesn’t help that most of the songs were variations on three basic songs, and if I have to listen to that Red and Black song one more time my head will literally explode.
There were parts I enjoyed, and I won’t be all black holes. I just feel like had there been a little more discrimination in the song selection and a willingness to space them out with dialog the movie would have moved a lot better and made each song have much more impact and relevance. Having Javert sing about his reasons for suicide lost a lot of meaning after listening to everyone else sing about every bowel movement and raincloud that passed overhead.
One last personal note before I get into the meat of the film. One of the actual reasons I had for seeing this film is I have had a long time love of Anne Hathaway (in spite of One Day but recently greatly enhanced by her portrayal of Sylina Kyle in the Dark Knight Rises). If you are reading this Anne I’d like to take you to dinner at the best taco truck you have ever tasted. However, in this film she is purposely made to look as ugly as possible and then dies about 40 minutes in. I totally felt ripped off, especially given that she is featured in about 80% of the screen time for all the trailers. I suppose if I had been more familiar with the story I would not have been so surprised (or bitter) but there it is.
Anyway, the story. Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman-X-Men, Real Steel, Rise of the Guardians) is a man convicted of stealing a loaf of bread and spends 19 years at hard labor. He is paroled but due to his status is destitute and starving. Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe-L.A. Confidential, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) is on him from the moment he is released. A priest gives him the means he needs to reinvent himself and he skips on parole and takes on the identity of a well-to-do businessman. Years later Javert comes to his office and sort of recognizes him. Meanwhile single mother Fantine (Anne Hathaway-the Devil Wears Prada, the Dark Knight Rises, One Day) is fired from Valjeans factory for something (?) and has to become a prostitute in order to keep her young daughter alive. Her daughter Cosette (Isabella Allen when young, Amanda Seyfried as a teenager) lives with two horrible innkeepers. Fantine is discovered by Valjean who realizes he is responsible for her downfall. She dies of something (?) and Valjean vows to take care of Cosette. However, Javert is after him so he has to escape to the other side of Paris (can someone please tell me why he didn’t just leave town the first time he got away from Javert?) and change his name again. Skip ahead again and the two of them live together in Paris while the post Revolution revolts are going on. A young revolutionary named Marius (Eddie Redmayne-Black Death, the Other Boleyn Girl, My Week with Marilyn) sees her and they fall in love.
You know, when I was watching the film I was having to pay so much attention to the singing I failed to realized what a convoluted mess the story really is. Tolkien would struggle to follow this. Anyway, the minor revolution happens. Guys die. More singing surfaces. Marius and Valjean go swimming in raw sewage with open bullet wounds (sepsis, anyone?). Javert fails in his duty and jumps off a bridge. For the most part the movie lives up to it’s name as almost everyone in it ends up dead or unhappy in some way or another.
The stars. Very pretty movie, with lots of cool images. One star. Excellent work on the costumes and period pieces. One star. There were a couple songs that actually struck my cold, flinty heart (Marius singing about his dead friends at the end in particular). One star. From what I could discern through the fog of music I actually like most of the characters, Javert and Valjean in particular. One star. Good acting all around, if you can be said to be acting when what you are really doing is physically emoting while singing. One star. In the A for effort category I will say I was impressed by all the actors being able to sing, and for the director insisting on each song being sung in scene and not recorded post production. Russell Crowe was the weakest of the singers but even he managed to pull it off. While not my cup of tea, I have an appreciation for the work put in there. Plus I sing like a dying cow. Two stars. Grand total: seven stars.
The black holes. I’m not hitting them for the fact that it was a musical. I will hit them however for the insistence of using music in many scenes that could have been accomplished via dialog or even camera work in a matter of seconds. One black hole. This is probably the end result of adopting a play to a movie while trying to keep the play feel, but the pacing was glacier-like. The film runs 157 minutes and you will feel every one of them, mostly in your ass. One black hole. They did that period thing that bugs the hell out of me with the accents. The film is set in France, but every character has an American accent except for a few minor ones who for some inexplicably reason are British (including one ragamuffin who sounded Cockney). Of course, they insist on calling everyone Monsieur or Mademoiselle, and when they do so have a flawless French accent. Just pick one and roll with it IMO. One black hole. I feel like featuring Anne Hathaway so prominently in the trailers only to have her shuffle off the mortal coil 1/4 of the way into the film is just false advertizing. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of three stars. However, my scoring is truly irrelevant. I’m not going to bother to recommend or unrecommended this film as I know you have all already decided if you are going to see it or not. If you lack a Y chromosome or are a fan of musical theater you probably have already seen it or plan to see it soon, and if you are not you probably won’t bother. Date movie? Abso-freaking-lutely. If sitting through this epic with a girl doesn’t get you laid you might as well become a monk because you are the least attractive man on the planet (on a side note, does anyone know of any good monasteries that are taking applications? I ask from a purely hypothetical point of view, and not at all because I saw this movie with a girl and didn’t get any). Bathroom break? The weird thing about this film is you kind of really have to pay attention to the singing in order to know what is going on, so I’d say try to hold it. However, if you need an exact point to relieve yourself any time they start singing the “Red and Black” song is pretty good. It goes on forever, is repeated ad nauseum, is towards the last 1/3rd of the film, and doesn’t really tell you much.
Thanks for reading. If you have comments on this film or my review of it feel free to post them here (even “Dave you are an idiot” comments will get approved as long as you don’t cuss). If you have off topic questions or suggestions (or happen to be Anne Hathaway taking me up on my taco truck offer) you can email me at [email protected]. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (I really only post my reviews and the occasional new t-shirt there). Talk to you soon.
Dave
