I SCREAMED A SCREAM

MOVIE
Les Miserables
Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Ann Hathaway
Director Tom Hooper
Review Ray Chan

IF you like your musicals big, bombastic and blasting on all cylinders, then this is the movie for you.
    The cinematic sweep works pretty well at times, right from the opening scene, in fact: a chain gang of prisoners labouring to pull an enormous ship into dry dock looks like authentic toil, and has a decent shock moment when the camera searches the faces and finds the emaciated Prisoner 24601, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread.
    The protagonist of Victor Hugo’s novel, Valjean is put on the path to goodness by a generous gift, but pursued relentlessly by Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), who doesn’t believe in redemption.
    Then after 90 minutes, the stage becomes vastly more crowded as other characters from the narrative are introduced.
    Valjean rescues Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) from a couple of unscrupulous innkeepers (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter), who then travels to Paris and falls in love with idealistic French student Marius (Eddie Redmayne), who has joined a band of brothers fighting in the revolution.
    Indeed, with the entire saga set in France, it’s interesting to note the cosmopolitan make-up of the cast, which includes Britons, Frenchmen, Americans and Antipodeans, all of whom make no attempt to hide their native accents.
    The exception is Cohen, who for whatever reason adopts a random Inspector Clouseau inflection, which contrasts wildly with the perplexing Jack Wild-esque Cockney-speak of Daniel Huttlestone as the French urchin Gavroche.
    With so many different characters, there are bound to be moments when viewers feel scenes are rushed, or lacking deeper exposition, but any flaws in the adaptation are more than made up for by Jackman’s performance.
    Apart from a solid showing as the anguished lead, Jackman surprises with his tenor vibrato, standing up against the best of the actors who have played Valjean, particularly in What Have I Done, dragging you into the film so completely you can almost feel his spit on you, and on the difficult Bring Him Home, where the verses hit notes that only dogs can hear.
    More surprising and impressive is the portrayal of Fantine by Anne Hathaway.
    Her solo I Dreamed a Dream is the first significant test for director Tom Hooper’s gamble of recording his actors performing live in one take, with flat notes and rough edges preserved and not re-done in the safe haven of a studio.
    The two shining stars really brighten up what we need to remember is foremostly a musical, but unfortunately, not all their peers are as vocally blessed, with the biggest culprit being Crowe.
    It’s not unfair to say that when Les Mis is good, it’s very, very good; but when it is bad, it’s usually because the Gladiator star has tried to sing.
    Crowe, whose professional crooning career peaked with pub band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, is a sorry simulacrum for the angry Javert, cooing dramatic songs as if they were lullabies.
    Ultimately, adapting beloved oeuvres into a new medium is always a tricky prospect. Whether it's a comic book, a stage play, or in this case, a great work of literature, if makes it to the silver screen, chances are that there is a fairly devoted fan base who will let you know in no uncertain terms if you screw up their baby.
    In Les Mis, if they can overlook the unevenness of some of the musical numbers, they will probably raise their thumbs.
    While there's a slight disconnect from the source material, there's also an undeniable passion and respect for the magnum opus, which runs for more than two-and-a-half hours.
    It may be overlong and even test one’s patience, especially those who are not into Broadway shows or singing and dancing theatre pieces, but as cinematic musicals go, it’s generally one of the more sumptuously-crafted productions in recent years.


#lesmiserables