Review of Les Misérables (2012) by Chris O — 20 Jun 2014

This was overall a well constructed musical rendition, but occasionally a bit melodramatic. Granted, the script and music are designed to be melodramatic in its mission to draw out the hopeless squalor of the revolution with some kind of fantastical hope in romance. However, I often found the music to be so bombastic and lumbering in it's mission that the lyrics were almost impossible to understand. Even the finale could have ended sweet and beautiful, but then brought out an almost bloated nationalistic ending far too overdirected for my liking. For fans of the musical already, this is less of an issue. However, I have never seen Les Miserables before in any format and therefore I think I lost some of the inherent beauty of the piece. Additionally, two issues arose which took me out of the moment too much.

-Two words: Russell Crowe. To be fair, I don't think he was nearly as bad as everyone told me he would be. He's a fine actor and played the part well. He was also not a terrible singer; from what I could tell, he was generally on pitch and emotionally connected. However, the issue is that he does not appear to have the breath control for live work. In the quiet tones, he was on pitch but was not extending and supporting the notes to their full effect. When he attempted to belt his notes in the rising vocals that are so iconic to this musical, he struggled and could not support the notes in volume or pitch. So yes, Russell Crowe was miscast. He wasn't awful until he had to show off breath support; beyond that he struggled.

-Anne Hathaway was incredible. Like really incredible. It's too bad that her story ended in the first 30 minutes or so. But I was annoyed for two reasons. First, her entire song shot in one frame, to rip apart our emotions and spit them out cohesively, is a luxury offered to Hathaway alone. That was her Oscar and they knew it, so they gave her every directorial advantage to that effect. To be fair, it's an incredible challenge all the same and Hathaway deserved that Oscar! But it was pretty clear they planned her to get that from every angle. Second, Hathaway was so powerful as a character and as a songstress that she blasted every other scene and character apart. No one could touch her. Unfortunately, that meant that even great performances from Jackman, Cohen, Bonham Carter, Barks, Seyfried, and Redmayne were swallowed up in a sense of "not Hathaway level." Hathaway alone is worth the movie, but it does make everything else feel unbalanced.

That being said, the casting was overall strong (major props to Hugh Jackman, who defied all expectations, and Sacha Baron Cohen, a surprising blend of needed levity and true savage greed). The emotion was raw and surface, an undoubtedly positive consequence of singing live. This was well done and well worth a watch for any fan of musicals, but be aware that Hooper's directing in this rendition is far from perfect. The true strength of this movie lies in the incredible cast and the original work of Victor Hugo.