Review of "Les Miserables"

I first heard of "Les Miserables" when it came to Singapore as a musical but at that time, I didn't manage to catch it because I was still a student then and frankly speaking, theatre productions were pretty much out of reach to most people with the high ticket prices.   As such, it is great that there is a movie version of "Les Miserables" which I think will be more accessible to the public in general and perhaps have a wider reach compared to musicals performed in designated venues. Having said that, my knowledge of the story was very limited before watching this movie. I haven't read the novel before so I only knew a sketchy outline of the story. Prior to watching the movie, I did some research online to get a feel of what to expect and realised that there seemed to be a lot of material in the original novel. How was everything going to fit into a  2.5 hour movie without feeling like it was disjointed? How can this very long movie keep people engaged because seeing a musical on stage is probably going to be very different from watching it on a cinema screen? In a way, I'm glad that I did not read the novel first because that actually made this movie a lot more palatable. I think I would be trying hard not to make comparisons if I knew the story very well so this helped me to enjoy this movie for what it was worth.

The story seemed to flow through rather quickly because it had to cover a lot of ground spread over a long period of time. As such, there were a few times when I felt that the time transition was rather abrupt because while you were still immersed in the previous moment, the scene changed so rapidly to the next development. However, I can understand why this had to be done because if not, the movie would be much longer than it currently is. There were some parts of the story which I enjoyed very much: Jean Valjean trying to escape from Javert (Russell Crowe) both physically and emotionally over many years (Valjean was still scared when he saw Javert after he became a factory owner and mayor even though the latter didn't recognise him at first), Fantine's downward spiral in life after she gets sacked and how she lamented her fate, Eponine's (Samantha Barks) one-way feelings for Marius (Eddie Redmayne), the Thenardiers describing how they con people in their inn (that was really funny) and the revolution scenes (especially towards the end when everyone was singing together). Surprisingly, or should I say unsurprisingly, the romance between Cosette and Marius didn't strike a chord with me at all and I was secretly hoping that the movie could get through that quickly. Maybe it's just me but I really couldn't bring myself to care for that love-at-first-sight relationship or rather those two characters. Nothing against the actors though.

People may have doubts over the cast's ability to sing in this movie but as far as I'm concerned, I think they all did pretty well especially for those who have some stage experience e.g. Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Samantha Barks. Even Russell Crowe sounded OK to me and he wasn't jarring to the ears or anything. I must say that I liked these three actors' performance the most. I believe the cast would have gone through a certain degree of training to practise for their scenes especially since I read an article that said the sound recording was done on set rather than in a studio.

Here is a selection some of the best performances (in my opinion) from the film:

I dreamed a dream - Fantine (Anne Hathaway)
This has got to be what got Anne Hathaway her supporting actress awards. Actually, Fantine wasn't in the movie for a long time but during the limited time Hathaway was on screen, she showed a lot of development and depth in Fantine's role as she suffered a terrible fate after being losing her job at the factory. This song is a great summary of Fantine's life as she goes from a young girl who believes in a bright future and everlasting love to one who is kinda cynical now about the things she used to believe in, full of helplessness (cannot raise Cosette on her own openly since she was unmarried) and despair about her present and future circumstances. Hathaway's rendition of this song really hit close to heart as she sang her heart out so it's no wonder that she managed to shine so brightly despite having limited appearance time (although I must say that her role was a meaty one after all).

On My Own - Eponine (Samantha Barks)
Apparently, Samantha Barks played the role of Eponine in the musical version of Les Miserables in London before so it won't be surprising if she knows the character inside out. Her singing and expressions show how much she was pining for Marius but she knew very well that he was in love with Cosette and she stood no chance with him. There is a similarity between Fantine's song and Eponine's because they had an identical theme of despair and not being able to do anything about their situations. However, Fantine's despair was more about not being able to control what life had in store for her while Eponine's despair was not being able to make the man she loved to take a good look at her no matter what she did because he was obsessed with another woman. Just like what Hathaway did with her song, Barks also impressed me a lot with this song. Despite a small role, Barks really showed a lot of potential in a 3-minute song which made me sit up and take notice of her.

Do you hear the people sing?
Compared to the two songs above which were more on the sentimental side and emotionally heavy, this song is extremely uplifting and full of hope and promise for the future. Although the revolution didn't succeed for the first time and resulted in heavy losses, those involved were so confident about their cause that they didn't seem to think of the what ifs when things did not go their way. Especially towards the finale when the "dead" come back to sing this song together, it was a nice way to end the movie on a positive note rather than focus on the "fairytale ending" of Marius and Cosette.