Tom Hooper's adaptation of Victor Hugo's
tome and worldwide stage hit, Les Miserables, tries to say (or
sing) so many things, piled on top of each another, that the resulting reaction
from me was to cringe and look away.
The movie wanted to be a lot of things and that is its downfall. It wanted to be a movie about a man who defies poverty and makes a better life for himself, it's about the love of a mother towards her child, it's a story of young love, it's about crime, punishment, justice, order, religion, oh throw in the Revolution!
The movie wanted to be a lot of things and that is its downfall. It wanted to be a movie about a man who defies poverty and makes a better life for himself, it's about the love of a mother towards her child, it's a story of young love, it's about crime, punishment, justice, order, religion, oh throw in the Revolution!
I felt overwhelmed and exhausted and not
in a good way. I understand that this is based on a very long novel and it is a
book about a lot of things. The problem, I think, was that the translation
from book to stage and subsequently, from stage to screen was a distilling
process. It sacrificed much of the content and themes because of the restraints
that is inherent in the theatre and cinematic medium. This epic story was
distilled and the essence extracted. The problem is how this distilled material
was handled.
There were a few directorial decisions
that were made poorly. This idea that the actors sing on camera would have
worked brilliantly if all the actors were extraordinary singers. It worked for
some- Hathaway’s I Dreamed A Dream and Bark’s On My Own – were particularly
powerful because their singing were both so incredibly affecting that you can’t
help but weep alongside them. However, it did not work all the time. Russel
Crowe was so lacklustre and restrained I did not feel anything for his
character. I don’t mind if you mess up a note as long as you are able to sell
your character and he doesn’t. I was supposed to feel his anger through his
voice and he couldn’t bring that through the screen.
If he was given the opportunity to just
talk, maybe Crowe would have been able to draw a much more vivid picture of his
character. Instead, he is forced to sing almost all his lines. That makes it so
painful to watch. A musical is effective if there is a combination of actors
talking and actors singing. If there was spoken dialogue thrown in there, it
would have helped punctuate the movie. Which brings us to the film’s pacing.
The film’s other downfall was in its
pacing and how the scenes were connected and strung together. I felt like we
were just being dragged along – a tourist bus view of the world of Les
Miserables. There are certainly standout scenes but they don't quite gel
together to form an effective dramatic whole. It felt like each song or each
'Big Scene' was bloated in its emotional grandiosity that when it cuts to the
next Big Scene, I was left feeling strangely empty and emotionally detached. I
was being asked to care for too many characters in too little time. The movie
needed quieter moments. It needed a series of connective tissues that linked
the Big Scenes, providing momentum, tension or sometimes a time to catch our
breath.
At some points, I wanted the music and the
singing to cease. It was like watching a two and half hour music video. A
well-made, well-acted, well-staged music video. That is what is so frustrating
with it. It had all the talent but it lacked sensitive direction. It lacked a
deliberate pace. It lacked consistency. For a musical, the film plays really
discordantly. It was a mess for me.
One of things I love about musicals are
those moments when characters break into song. They break into
song. The characters take a break and take us by the hand and lead us away from
the fictional reality even for only a few minutes. This is because when
characters are singing they don't exist within the reality, they hover above
it. Characters break into song to emphasise certain moments when they are
straddling the line with the real and the not real. These are moments of
elation and victory and melancholy and romance and humour and fear. They are
moments of heightened emotional intensity. They are the peaks on the film's
emotional seismograph. But you don't get peaks when every scene is a peak.
All you get is a flat line.
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