Review: Les Misérables (2012)

★★★☆☆

Director: Tom Hooper

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried

❝ TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD. ❞

Synopsis: Several years after the beginning of the French Revolution, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) has just finished serving his sentence for a crime he committed. When he breaks his parole, he is hunted by Javert (Russell Crowe), whilst trying to change his ways and become an honest man. In this journey he meets Fantine (Anne Hathaway) and agrees to take care of her child, Cossette (Amanda Seyfried). An epic journey of romance, justice, tragedy and self-realisation in the midst of a passionate revolution begins.

This film - what can be said about it that hasn't already been said? It's loud, it's obnoxious, and it demands to be seen and heard. However, whilst the story itself is one of the greatest stories ever written, that doesn't mean that a film adaptation will give it the voice it deserves. Les Misérables asks us to pity, constantly pity each character to the point where they just didn't feel human anymore. I think the problem was each unnecessary camera angle, the laboured singing, the godawful cinematography as a whole made it feel like a film and just that. Nothing more, nothing less. It didn't even attempt to pull the audience into an experience of a lifetime, which this had the potential to be. There were at times gentle and quiet moments and these revealed small fragments of hope that the film may calm down and just believe in itself. With a story like Les Misérables it already has the power deeply imbedded in it that there really doesn't need to be such a grand spectacle made of it - it can make a quiet understated film and be just as much of a triumph as this kind. It's a shame Hooper chose to make this a grand epic, because the runtime felt too long and thus felt like he didn't understand the story well enough. That being said, the performances in this were absolutely breathtaking, and in particular Hugh Jackman giving, what could very well be, the performance of his career. In fact, Hugh really carried this film well; yes, the supporting cast did a wonderful job too, but Jackman had a presence and really stripped his real identity to become Jean Valjean. I don't think Les Misérables is the roaring success that it should have been simply because of Hooper's choices as a director. Still, I think it's worth watching because these actors really pour their hearts and souls into giving their characters life, and that is such a rare thing to see in mainstream cinema today.