(also reviewed for Las Vegas CityLife and Folio Weekly)
Stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helen Bonham Carter. Directed by Tom Hooper from a script by William Nicholson. PG-13. 157 minutes. Critic’ grade: C+
‘Tis the season: Victor Hugo’s oft told tale of good deeds that don’t go punished, innocence crushed, one law officer’s unhealthy obsession with crime and punishment, young French idealists lost in a bloody battle of their own making, and true love lost by one woman but won by another is going to move some folks to tears and/or fits of Oscar cheerleading.
As the only film of its kind this season — a big budget, glossy musical with high-priced stars, impressive production values, foreign accents and a period setting in 19th-century France — it comes with a natural-born veneer of prestige.
Then there’s a different kind of reaction to the film altogether, that of being thoroughly worn out by yet another overlong awards-season movie masquerading as an important artistic achievement. Tom Hooper’s adaptation of big ’80s Broadway super-musical “Les Miserables,” at a running time of more than two and one-half hours, feels like a simultaneously very long and decidedly manic race to wrench every conceivable possible human emotion out of a familiar story. Like “The Master,” it’s secure in the confidence that it has greater pop-culture significance than it actually possesses.
Hooper, so assured with the much smaller, Oscar-winning drama “The Kings Speech,” this time attempts to make a royal climax out of practically every song. Some are sung with relative ease by Hugh Jackman, perfectly at home with singing stage roles, and some are taken by Russell Crowe, a perfectly good sport, pushing hard to make his croaky voice rise to the occasion. So give the guy credit, as he’s perfectly passable, although he looks a tad uncomfortable with the work. The job, too, is required of Anne Hathaway, who largely succeeds at the task.
Those actors, as well as Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried and others in smaller roles, benefit from a technical gambit regarding the vocal performances: the singing is done live, as the cameras roll, instead of as an exercise in lip-synching. The effect is a positive one, with the vocal work fitting more naturally with the acting, rather than coming off as an add-on, as so often happens in musicals.
The tale is uncomplicated. Jean Valjean (Jackman), an ex-convict, jailed for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s family, is nearly taken back to prison for a more serious theft. He subsequently renounces his birth name, assumes a new identity, embarks on his own secret relocation project, and spends years effectively avoiding capture by his relentless pursuer, Inspector Javert (Crowe). Along the way, Valjean develops a strong affection for Fantine (Hathaway) a vulnerable, penniless unwed mother suffering deeply after being forced to cut her hair and take up prostitution, the former indignity of which appears to have caused the greatest anxiety.
Handsome, valiant, ever noble Valjean volunteers to take responsibility for Fantine’s button-cute daughter, Cosette (Isabelle Allen). Later, having blossomed into a pretty young woman, the grown-up Cosette (Seyfried) falls for Marius (Redmayne), one of the brigade of pretty young men devoted to the hopeless cause of bringing down the French monarchy, during the two-day Paris Rebellion of 1832.
Hooper’s retelling of “Les Miserables,” which follows multiple big-screen versions, including Bille August’s 1998 epic with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, is simply overstuffed, an overcooked turkey ready for consumption just in time for Christmas dinner.
How many shots of Dickensian huddled masses — the old-school Occupy Paris crowd and poverty stricken little ones teeming on city streets — can Hooper offer up? How many nearly grotesque Fellini-esque close-ups, maybe beautiful in their ugliness, of a dirtied-up Jackman, or a just-attacked, newly shorn Hathaway, or a nearly dead Marius, dragged through the sewers, or the painted ladies of a certain ignoble profession, can the filmmaker provide? When is enough enough?
“Les Miserables” does come with intermittently entertaining comic relief, in the form of Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as, respectively, an innkeeper and his wife, the wacky, greedy caretakers of young Cosette. And the big musical numbers admittedly do on occasion build into impressive displays of performance power, as the leads really go for it, every time out.
Hooper’s plan is to leave viewers no choice. Submit, already!
“…going into the Paramount Theater at ten o’clock in the morning, knowing I didn’t have to go to school, and seeing a movie, and then when the movie was over, rising out of the pit would be Duke Ellington and you’d hear ‘Take the A Train’ filling that theater. You know, it would take the top of your head off.”
