Movie Review: Les Misérables - Less Revolutionary, More Miserable

The first and only time I’d watched Les Misérables was at the Kallang theatre back when I was, um…7 years old (had to google the exact year the touring company came here and it threw up 1994). Strange childhood, I know. (I also kinda recall watching my first movie at the cinema only when I was 11ish but that’s another story.)

Anyway, while watching Les Misérables the play, I very distinctly remembered the child actors and that haunting “castle on a cloud” song. Tried to follow the play and shenanigans onstage I did, but, I also remembered that it was a melodramatic and draggy story, pretty darn convoluted for a child to appreciate I guess.

18 years later (whao!), fast-forward from the stage-to-screen effort. :D

 

This supposed blockbuster-musical  (blockbusical? musicbuster? :P) have been eagerly anticipated because of the who’s who attached to it like Tom Hooper (the director of last year’s nominee for Best Movie The King’s Speech), triple threat and multiple Tony Awards winner Hugh Jackman, heavyweight Russell Crowe, and the versatile Anne Hathaway (of Princess Diaries and recent catwoman in the last Batman movie fame) who, was given much props in the industry for chopping off her hair and shaving off like, 10kg for her role in this film.  

The director played on the acting credentials of these actors but, it seems he couldn’t quite make up his mind in fully capitalising on that.

Firstly , BIG grouse about the decision to record the show ‘live’. This made the songs very forgettable-sounding. Almost every other second, the characters were sing-talking, and I can count off the decent-sounding songs in less than one hand. If there’s one thing I could have told the director, it would be, “Don’t mess with the music, bodoh!”

You know that saying ‘all filler, no killer’? Not good. The director should have bore in mind that he was working with actors first and foremost. Not stage actors, and not (quite) singers.

Glorifying the actors with mostly close-up shots become annoying after the first half hour (we get it, everyone’s miserable, you don’t have to shove it in our faces!). Actually, the exact moment is once Anne Hathaway has delivered her epic dashed dreams song, veins throbbing out on her forehead and all. We know this is a musical-movie and we have these ‘serious’ actors involved, but it wouldn’t have hurt if we had gotten a more sweeping, cinematic experience. Even on stage, there are never quite static moments you know?

 

There were brief glimpses of big-scale production goodness- such as the opening and closing scenes but they were très few.

The director had one (albeit très little) moment of clarity with the scene where we are first introduced to the mischievous tricksters that are the innkeeper and his wife (played to great comic effect by pro couple Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen).  It would have been a more satisfying movie-musical viewing experience, if more of such choreographed scenes were played out. What made Mamma Mia! (and West Side Story while we’re at that) the movie-musical such a joy to the audience, was of the various dance sequences and lively usage of space. For that movie, the actual stage show producers had collaborated organically with the movie executives. I’m not too sure if similarly, staff of the staged show had much creative input for this film, but I’d put a big wager that they didn’t.

 

And seriously, what was up with the small allocation of space for the (last remaining) barricade scenes? It's like a six-cornered fight over an SMC kinda feeling.

Instead, the film went down the gritty, arthouse-indie route! Thin character development, choppy scenes, scarce dialogue, the works (It’s a pity because the story-telling element and interplay of the characters’ relationships were what made the director’s previous project The King’s Speech such a winning film). Why then, market your movie to be released on a family-friendly public holiday and/or in the midst of the fuzzy holiday season? For example, I would have liked to have seen the pseudo father/guardian-daughter relationship being fleshed out, a la Snow White and the Huntsman. Instead, he seemed more like a repressed, lovelorn guardian, which ended with him strangely isolating himself in a church, and as my movie companion ironically pointed out, very much looking like the tormented+repressed Wolverine that Jackman is iconically known for. Also, the 'love at first sight' portrayal of the young couple is très très cheesy. Period.

However, I very much adored the casting of the child actors, playing the young Cosette and the blonde revolutionary boy. In general, I adore child actors, period.

 

To wrap up, I would say, this film- affectedly melodramatic storyline which happened to find itself set against a period backdrop -  is perfect for say, the pretentious history buff.

Movie Rating? 2/5