Les Misérables

As a massive film fan, my tastes are very wide-ranging, but I do have a problem with musicals. Nevertheless I was happy to take the opportunity of a private viewing of "Les Misérables" at the London office of distributors Universal - the day after the London première and a month before the UK release - because of the outstanding success of the original stage show (a run of 27 years with a total audience of over 60 million) and the surprising and impressive cast list (Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne).

The showing was introduced by producer Eric Fellner of Working Title who underlined the commercial challenge of making a film in which all the dialogue is sung and the themes are so political and praised director Tom Hooper ("The King's Speech") for his insistence that every take was sung live.

The two main characters are presented in the opening seconds of a sweeping introductory sequence: the police inspector Javert (Crowe) and the prisoner 24601 Jean Valjean (Jackman) in post-revolutionary France. There follows over two and half hours with barely a spoken word which will not appeal to all cinema-goers, but the production is a triumph with Cameron Mackintosh's musical opened up by dramatic shooting on Pinewood's brand new Richard Attenborough stage and some historic English locations.

If Crowe and especially Jackman are excellent, Hathaway - who lost 25 pounds and most of her hair for the role - is outstanding as the destitute Fantine and Cohen and Carter almost steal the show as the comical Thénardier innkeepers.

I'm not sure how long it will take for "Les Misérables" to recoup its investment cash- wise, but it's going to win award after award and rightly so.

Jean Valjean: "I stole a loaf of bread. My sister's child was close to death, and we were starving." Javert: "And you will starve again unless you learn the meaning of the law!"

Just as I stood at the end of the stage production of Les Miserables, I stood in my home after watching a screener copy. I was, however, concerned that I would have nothing "critical' to say about director Tom Hooper's lush film version, filled with first-rate actors believable crowds, and singing befitting non-opera types in a people's opera.

Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), mayor of Paris in the first part of the 19th century, promises dying prostitute Fantine (Anne Hathaway) to take care of her daughter, Cosette (Amanda Seyfried). He has been eluding the tireless policeman, Javert (Russell Crowe), after breaking parole for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread, for which he served 19 years. It's not so much the melodrama that grabs me as the inspired music that has discernibly distinct and luscious melodies and a book that straightforwardly tells story and reveals character.

Jackman, Hathaway, and Crowe are competent singers, and the better for not being opera stars, who would have compromised the Everyman feel of the musical. For an almost three hour show, Hooper and writer Claude-Michel Schonberg keep the action moving from Javert and Valjean in a battle of wits and the youths fomenting a revolution right outside the windows.

For comic relief, Sacha Baron Cohen as Thénardier and Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thénardier run a comical whore house and do quite well as pickpockets. At times, their antics are so opposite the grand action outside as to be almost irritating. Les Mis was a thrill on stage; it is a joy on screen as the 19th century comes alive with the poor struggling against the rich and the noble, poor or rich, miserable.

I could listen to the sound track all day, everyday. And this is my favorite cinematic production.

Tom Hooper did a great job as director of a powerful star studded cast and Danny Cohen as cinematographer.

This production carry's me to Victor Hugo's epic imagination based on the reality of life during his lifetime, imprinted on our extraordinary literary accomplishment-a timeless classic surviving over 150 years... as well all the previous theatrical and cinematic productions since 1984.

The optics are an enthralling cinematic accomplishment capturing the sung live scenes... and the actors all out effort to make this as true to the emotional turmoil of a horrendous life in early 18th century Paris; all the begotten injustices on the very fabric of humanity's birth right for freedom- known later as The Birth of Enlightenment.

Anne Hathaway sings "I DREAMED A DREAM" with a definitive voice of a dying woman elevated to divine presence. Kudos!!!

Jackman and Crowe compliment each other's roles to perfection. Spellbinding.

Eddie Reymane and Amanda Seyfried as well make it all the more real. They brought me to tears.

I could go on, but in light of the negative, rather jaded reviews of this production, it goes without my saying that some people just have to be negative about anything that's actually well performed.

Sad because Hugo's timeless message is lost to them who focus on the actors themselves instead of seeing the Fourth Wall in front them.

As a theatrical producer, playwright, musical performer and director, the efficacy it takes to bring a production of this genre is in and of itself in a category of an epic artistic ideal to be met.

I've seen the theatrical production as well. Both revenues are complimentary at best. Neither can be compared as one being better than the other. That's a mistake to be made when reviewing Hugo's legacy. Here we have poetry, drama and prose that rise to the heavenly heights of cinematic theater.

Other than Crowe's singing (which isn't terrible), the musical absurdities (which is just a wavelength thing), & its extreme sincerity (which I consider a strength), it's pretty unimpeachable. There are so many powerful moments: Do You Hear?, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, the battle on the garbage barricade, etc...and, of course, I Dreamed a Dream. Say what you will about Hathaway being a bit much at times; she was put on this earth to perform that scene.

Les Miserables is very old fashioned entertainment. It's a series of crescendo moments with no build-up, no backstory, no pause. It's like eating just the topping of the pecan pie, and not bothering with the crust or filling. We were just ten minutes into the movie when I had to look at my watch and ask, okay, how long can they keep this up? Climax after climax, plot twist after plot twist, tearjerking scene after tearjerking scene. Oceans! Mountains! Punishment! Suffering! Religion! Redemption! Will there be a break for lunch? Will we be able to catch our breath?

If you can watch this film without crying, I don't want to know you. The woman behind me was on the edge of her seat, not just because I smell good. The audience at the 10:40 a.m. matinée – the theater was packed – applauded at the end, and was very slow to leave the theater, even as the closing credits rolled.

Typical of big, fat, nineteenth-century novels, there are numerous implausible coincidences that drive the plot. These coincidences took me out of the movie, but that was a good thing. The human suffering on screen was overwhelming: suicide, enslavement, exploitation of living humans' body parts, prostitution, disease, spite, malice, child abuse, starvation, sadism, a dying man escaping through very graphic sewerage. I did have to repeat to myself, "This is only a movie" even as tears streamed down my cheeks.

Jean Valjean is imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving children. He slaves for twenty years. He hauls a massive, capsized sailing ship. The scene does look like obviously fake CGI, but that doesn't make it any less gut wrenching. The workers sing, "You'll always be a slave. You are standing in your grave." They are the men we see in Sebastiao Salgado photographs of Third World laborers. They are Ilya Repin's "Barge Haulers on the Volga." Valjean's nemesis is the crazily obsessive policeman, Javert. They spar throughout the film, as Valjean's fate rises and falls and rises and falls and rises … you get the idea.

A story this big, this broad, and this implausible requires one hundred percent commitment from the performers. Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean is superb. He believes. He emotes. He is as big as the story itself. Jackman is the heart and soul of "Les Miserables." I loved him. Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen – they all had me convinced. Russell Crowe was a surprising disappointment. He's a brilliant actor and I kept waiting for him to bring some fire, some ice, some power, some insight to Javert, the obsessive and punitive policeman who mercilessly hounds Jean Valjean. I wanted a memorable moment that would make me feel that Crowe's performance brought Javert to intimate life for me. That moment did not arrive.

I wondered while watching this movie whether it will be embraced by the political left or the political right. It is a deeply and unashamedly Christian film. A Catholic priest, emulating Jesus, is the catalyst. Valjean spends the rest of the film working to live up to the priest's Biblical example. "Les Miserable" is leftist in that it depicts the poor rising up, but then the poor fail their own putative saviors, and allow them to be massacred, alone. Javert, representing law and order, is a monster. The film's brief glimpse of heaven is like some limousine liberal's fantasy.

I think "Les Miserables" is as popular as it is for the same reason that Cinderella is so popular. When "Les Miserable" was a stage play, tickets were a very expensive and difficult to acquire luxury. It is ironic that a play about the wretched of the earth would be such a luxury entertainment. Why do we enjoy watching people much poorer and more desperate than we will ever be? Why do we pay for the privilege? Because we all see ourselves in Cinderella, in Jean Valjean, no matter how lucky we are. I'll certainly never stand in cold sea water with iron shackles around my wrists and neck, overseen by a cold sadist like Javert. But, along with millions of others, I saw my own struggles in Valjean, and thanked God that I didn't have it as bad as he. If Jean Valjean can go on, I can, too!

I wish the songs had been a tad better. There are a couple of good ones, "I dreamed a dream" and "Do you hear the people sing?" All the actors sing very well. Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman sing especially well.