Les Miserables

Have you seen it? I've been apprehensive for months, ever since I heard they were making a movie. There's always potential to go either way, and especially with some of the casting choices—especially when I heard that Taylor Swift might play Eponine—yes, I was very unsure. But oh, I finally saw it last week. And it... was amazing. 

I know a lot of people hated Russell Crowe; I didn't. No, he doesn't have the right kind of voice or skill for that part. He was a little bit like Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia, only not nearly as bad; he was kind of like Gerard Butler in Phantom of the Opera. He was straining at times, you could tell. There wasn't enough power behind his songs, and sometimes that was disappointing. But he acted the role. He was confused and uncertain and pious and judgmental, and he managed surprisingly well for someone who isn't a Broadway performer. He certainly wasn't the disaster people have made him out to be (I quite liked this amusing defense of him). In fact, I don't even think his performance was the worst in the movie; I liked him much better than Amanda Seyfried, aka Disney Snow White, aka "what a bird turned into a human would sound like" (as I heard a friend say) (blech).

Hugh Jackman was fantastic. Samantha Barks was excellent, and I love that they got her to play Eponine again. Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen were raunchy and awful (I loved them). Colm Wilkinson made a surprise appearance as the bishop at the beginning, and while I actually was disappointed by his singing, the mere fact of the cameo made me happy. I loved finding out from a friend that Frances Ruffelle (the original Eponine) had an appearance, too, as "whore 1." Anne Hathaway was breathtaking, and I've never seen a performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" that moved me so much. Aaron Tveit was great as Enjolras (and my goodness, his last scene... Wow). I've already talked about Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfriend. And Eddie Redmayne—he was a big surprise to me. I've never seen him in anything else, and I actually think he is now my favorite Marius.

Michael Ball has the voice, and his performance is gorgeous, but he does almost zero acting. He half smiles when he sings, and through most of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"—which is the peak of actual acting in his performance—I feel like the best he manages is medium sadness. Nick Jonas is... Well, he's Nick Jonas. I still can't figure out what was behind that casting choice, because he is a pop star and not at all right for that role. But he acts better than Michael Ball, I have to give him that, even though his voice is no comparison (if you're going to watch the videos I linked, DO NOT watch Michael Ball first. I mean, you have to at least give Nick a chance here). I feel like Eddie Redmayne is a pretty decent happy medium. His voice is well-suited to the role, and good lord, does that boy act it. There's one audio recording of him singing "Empty Chairs" out there right now, but I'm not going to link it, because you really need to see it. His face during that number... That is believable grief. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, go, come back, and then we'll talk. (Yes, I sobbed through the entire scene. I know you were wondering.)

< Geeky fangirl side note >You could accidentally spend a lot of time on this Tumblr page if you're interested in Les Mis, like I sort of just did. But the reason I'm showing it to you is that if you scroll down just a little past the top, you can see a gif of Eddie Redmayne's "Empty Chairs" scene that will at least allow you to imagine it a little better. Until you actually see it. Which you should. Immediately.</ Geeky fangirl side note >

There were plenty of little things I didn't like about the movie, funnily enough. They left out Eponine in the death scene at the end (although she does still make an end-of-movie appearance—sorry if I'm spoiling things! I don't think these are real spoilers, though, don't worry). Like I said before, I felt kind of gypped by Colm Wilkinson's performance of the bishop's scenes in the beginning, which I love in the stage versions. I also felt like they didn't give a good enough explanation for the scene where Fantine gets thrown out of the factory; I saw the movie with people who've never seen the show before, and they didn't at all understand why the women turned on her. Like everyone else, I was bemused by Tom Hooper's love affair with close-up shots. Fantine's worked for me, since she's just sitting in one place the whole time, but Jean Valjean's kind of drove me crazy. And, finally, there's the difference between movie singing and stage singing. On stage it's all about performing the song, so even when a character is dying, they sing. In the movie, it's more about making it look like things are really happening, and characters just happen to be singing instead of talking. So, for example, Fantine's last song is barely audible. She's croaking out her lines as though she actually were trying to sing while dying, and it makes for a much more realistic and moving scene—but you basically lose the song. Pros and cons of the medium, I guess.

They did some different things with the movie that I really liked, too. Most interesting was the addition of the new song, "Suddenly," which wasn't in the stage versions but was written by the original composers to fill in what Tom Hooper thought—and I agree—was a hole in the plot. (But not a hole in the book plot; this whole section is well-detailed in the book, and just skipped over in the play.)

In amusing/annoying news, I read this morning that in the LDS community, there are people who feel like Les Miserables is "inappropriate." Surprisingly, both of these Meridian reviews are thoughtful and reasonable and grown-up about the sexual content. But if you read the comments, oh my goodness, is there a lot of pearl-clutching going on about the "explicit sex" and "eroticism" in the movie. Here's the thing—it's the story of a woman who is forced through terrible circumstances to resort to prostitution in order to save the life of her child. The prostitution is kind of inherent to the plot, and it's also depicted as a horrible and soul-crushing thing. It is not erotic. And according to absolutely no definition is two fully-clothed people lying on a bed in the dark with barely any movement explicit or graphic. Do people even know what those words mean? The scene with Santa (confusing, I know; you have to see the movie for it to make sense) is raunchy, but it happens so fast even most people who have seen the movie are confused when people bring it up, because they don't remember it at all. You see a fully-clothed woman on top of a fully-clothed man dressed as Santa, with her skirts covering him, and they thrust once or twice. It's supposed to show corruption and debauchery, and it is hardly "erotic." 

So, that is Les Mis. I was skeptical and nervous, but Tom Hooper pulled it off. There were little things I wish they had done differently, but in the context of the whole movie they barely matter. The scope and detail that this medium offers were really incredible in rendering the story. The sweeping landscape shots in the first few minutes of the movie, Javert's rooftop scenes, the shots of the French army marching down the streets toward the barricade—they maintain the sense of size, the bigness that you get in the play just from the presence of all those people on stage. If you've seen the play but never read the book, the movie will probably fill in small holes for you here and there; Marius's background, the relationship that grows between Jean Valjean and Cosette, the relationship between Eponine and Cosette. There are even scenes where I finally understood who exactly the singer was talking to (like Gavroche's first song, and some of the scenes with the revolutionaries). Overall, amazingly well done. The music, as always, is gut-wrenchingly powerful, and now the acting is strong enough to go with it. It will never replace the theater productions for me, but I can't wait to see it again.