Les Miserables (2012)

Originally posted on AD Forums on December 31, 2012. This review contains heavy spoilers, which are unmarked.

I made the horrible mistake of getting really plastered the night before seeing Les Miserables. It wasn't the impending seeing of the film that made me drink - it was more that me and my girls found a Pokemon Drinking Game and went crazy. We then spent most of the evening drunkenly watching the newer Sherlock series (with Benedict Cumberbatch) and commented mostly on how awesome scene transitions and the wallpaper in Sherlock's apartment were. (Note: apparently I only notice good set design while drunk.) Why am I even bringing this up, you may ask?

Because Les Mis's biggest failing is scene placement and transitions. Never have I seen a film with so many moments that could've been fixed by a different director - and I'm going to go against the pack and suggest that the editor of this film also needs to take some blame for this. Most people have suggested that Tom Hooper has an obvious "problem" with using intense close-ups on his characters, but the intense close-ups themselves aren't the entire problem, and, in some instances, work absolutely beautifully (Gavroche's death is a pretty good instance of it - the constantly spiraling-ing camera, cutting to a wider shot of the one revolutionary who cared for him absolutely losing his shit, is a place where Hooper's claustrophobic focus is well-suited, and the dread over seeing the revolution's mascot about to be killed wouldn't have been accomplished well any other way). It's when there's no cutting away from those intense close-ups that there begins to be a problem. For my money, the worst-shot number is "A Heart Full of Love", because what is supposed to be a duet, and then a trio, never actually shows all two/three participants on screen at the same time. That's just directing 101... but the editor is just as culpable, for stringing together a bunch of unnerving close-ups without much invention. Even if Hooper didn't film all three participants at the same time, something we'll probably never know (because I don't see a different master cut of this ever being released), the editor is his accomplice in destroying the song's presentation.

Oddly, the transition out of that moment is one of the best ones, and the replacement of "On My Own" really helps to stretch out Eponine's threadbare story to fit the entire third act instead of just pieces of it. (I know it's threadbare. I played her. I love the girl but she doesn't have shit-all to do, and the movie gives her big letter-giving moment to Gavroche.) But the over-reliance on the jump cut suggests that Hooper had no idea how to move this story along. A few have commented on the camera into the sky thing, but I feel like it's a nice way to link the characters who it pulls away from - Valjean and Javert. The jumpiness of the camera, especially getting away from "Look Down" and into "In My Life" (which was also horrendously shot in that you don't know Cosette's sitting on a bed until she gets off of it), is disorienting, and only makes France seem moreso like the most claustrophobic environment ever invented. Again, in some cases, this claustrophobia really works - seeing Fantine's coworkers versus Fantine as if the audience is the foreman being crowded by them is rather inspired. And some times, Hooper does let his setting breathe - "Do You Hear the People Sing", "On My Own", and especially the Finale.

I won't say that any time Hooper pulled away from his close-ups, the movie immediately worked. That's horrifically reductive and lessens the power of quite a few songs, especially Anne Hathaway's and Eddie Redmayne's, who I'm certain would not be talked up so much for awards if their big scenes weren't filmed that way. The raw emotion of what appears to be a single take for both for them pours out from the screen, and nothing else is needed but their explosive voices. (Redmayne's version of Marius' "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" in particular stands out to me as being an incredible improvement over the stage. The versions I've seen revive the revolutionaries for a few moments as ghosts, and I was never comfortable with that imagery. The film eschews that, thankfully, which both makes the ending a powerful surprise for the audience, and doesn't take away from the depth of loneliness Marius is feeling in that moment, being the only one of his friends to survive a massacre.) I won't say that every open number is good, either. Helena Bonham-Carter really can't match Sacha Baron Cohen in "Master of the House", which is one of the most traditionally cinematically-staged numbers, but Mme. Thenardier is such a hard character to cast that I'm unsure if Hooper could've done better picking someone else.

Speaking of casting, Russell Crowe wasn't a bad singer. He just had the completely wrong style for this type of operatic movie. He wouldn't be out of place in Hair, honestly - he has a nice rock-opera style which, unfortunately, no one else in this movie possesses. He's not nearly the disaster everyone is insisting he is. Crowe has a nice handle on the melodic qualities of his songs, and can actually sing. His style, compared to Seyfried's delicate soprano lilt, or Jackman's powerful embodiment of Valjean's internal turmoil, is just wildly out of place for the setting. I hope everyone going "you tried" doesn't put him off of trying other musicals, since he'd be a good asset to a more modern-styled film.

For me, the movie worked the best when the raw emotion of the thing was allowed to shine through. Hathaway and Redmayne's numbers were things I already mentioned, but there are multiple instances where the film pulls everything together so well it's hard not to cry/cheer. Spoiler alert: I bawled for like five minutes after the end of the film because it was such a perfectly realized version of the Finale. Everything about the stage version, with all the dead flooding the space and singing their song of hope, was so beautifully pulled together, and, because of the film's changes, having the Bishop sing the harmony with Valjean and Fantine instead of Eponine had an unbelievably strong resonance that the original stage version, great as it is, didn't quite match. And the grand sweep over the new barricade, with some choice close-ups of Eponine and Enjolras and Gavroche and all the dead... Christ. It's like Hooper and the editor poured all their efforts into making that one scene everything any stage fan of the show could want, and it worked.

Beyond that, there are so many subtle moments that at least showcased how well the actors knew and believed in their characters. For all Russell Crowe is being derided, I had no doubt about his acting ability as Javert, and the short scene where he pins his honor medal on Gavroche was a huge highlight for me. Its taciturn nature belies how hugely emotional and destructive this moment will ultimately be to him. One such that didn't work, and that I feel the need to point out because it's one of my favorite aspects of the stage show, is

Overall, I know I've kind of bounced back and forth on this, but this movie gets a solid B for me. The distinct visual language of this film isn't always suitable, but it works far more than it doesn't, and it creates its own version of an epic that still conveys the deep emotionality and distress of the setting. I really liked it, and will probably see it again, when I'm sure that I won't spend a ridiculous amount of time crying into my shirtsleeve.

***.5/*****

One other note: this is a weird personal thing, but I absolutely love that the people in this movie look "realistically filthy" instead of "stage filthy". Like Eponine, for instance. (Sorry, I really love her.) She doesn't look clean by any stretch of the imagination, but she doesn't have caked-on dirt all over her, or bruises or anything. She just has greasy hair, dirty clothes, and a smudge on her here and there. Same goes for Prostitute!Fantine, who looks realistically freezing to death.