Review of Les Misérables (2012) by David N — 25 Jan 2014

However much you might fanatically adore the show, whether you detest all singing theatrical and filmic alike, and long before the Honest Trailer ruined it for pretty much everyone else, this was predestined to be a divisive, bordering on experimental piece of work that was actually a pretty bold gamble for big studios to take - not the obscenely profitable brand itself, but the on-screen approach to it that realistically always had to be the way to go.

The show is my favourite of the carefully restricted pantheon of musicals I have time for, and to date I've watched this version twice. It doesn't hold all that much resonance with the stage version for me, speaking honestly, but each time I've seen it, I can't help but be impressed.

I don't care that Russell Crowe sounds like Officer Barbrady. He's physically an imposing and startling Javert and his presence brings any soaring luvvie pretensions of the pretty stage school cast firmly back down to earth, which fits the film's gritty textural approach like a well-filled trouser.

Said approach, incidentally, is the most impressive facet of the whole thing and what allows it to get away with being an (almost) entirely sung two-and-a-half hours. Even Jackman is a surprise - I knew he'd cut his teeth on Oklahoma! and the like before movies but I didn't realise he'd be such a grounded and striking alpha presence.

Could Wolverine have aided this, we might never know. Hathaway, meanwhile, is a cut-and-dried Oscar chaser here and should be ashamed of herself, so it's somewhat of an irritation that she's the best thing in the movie by miles.

The disintegration of Fantine is the closest musical theatre gets to credible tragedy, and Hathaway's headlong commitment to downward spiralling here will be remembered for many reasons and years to come.

The film isn't really going to convert any fence-sitters, but it doesn't need to. The show will make quadragillions for a long while yet and even if this were only an inevitable, costly marketing exercise - and it's fortunate to be more than that - it would have done its duty with more integrity and spirit of invention than many of its big-budget contemporaries.