Les Miserables

In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert after he breaks parole, agrees to care for factory worker Fantine's daughter, Cosette. The fateful decision changes their lives forever.

I've been wanting to see Les Miserables for almost a year, which gives us an idea of how long the hype surrounding this Oscar nominated adaptation has been going on. Almost a year ago to date, I was thinking of what books I wanted to read in 2012 and that I needed at least one classic in there. I'm always shamefully apathetic with classics - they just normally take so long to read that, no matter how good they are, I become bored. In anticipation of the film, though, I wanted to try Victor Hugo's original novel. Holy mother... it's a frickin' doorstop of a book. Thus, not unsurprisingly, I have not read the book. I have, though, just seen the film and completely loved it.

Whenever I go and see a musical, be it on screen or on stage, somehow I always seem to forget that they are going to do a hell of a lot of singing... so much so that Amanda Seyfried, one of the headline names, does not have to test her English accent skills even once as every single line she says is sung. The director, Tom Hooper, approached the singing, as you have probably heard by now, in an interesting way. He didn't cast the best singers in Hollywood for this film and he didn't stick them in a recording booth for days on end to perfect each track. They just sang there and then as they were acting in an effort to get across the reality of their characters' situations and I think it really works.

I completely understand that, as a result of Hooper's approach, some people are distracted from time to time as the singing in places is a little shaky, but I see the result as showing singing to be the ultimate form of expressing emotion. Unfortunately, I am completely awful at it. I cried my way through Anne Hathaway's surely Oscar-winning performance of I Dreamed a Dream, but I'm not entirely sure whether I was crying more about Fantine's desperate situation or the fact that, despite many hours screeching along to Glee's version of the classic song, I still cannot reach those high notes.

As a story, I am sure that massive chunks have been cut out since the original novel. Impossible not to. I could complain, but there's something nice about the fact that we don't have to go back 2 more times before we see the ending...*cough* the Hobbit... You really go along with Jean Valjean the entire way through his journey - you wouldn't want that disrupted. I also am a sucker for any story related to the French Revolution (as you may have noticed in my review of A Place of Greater Safety...)

Controversially, none of the four main cast members are British despite it being a British film. Don't get me wrong, Jackman, Hathaway, Crowe... they're all phenomenal in this movie, but I feel, as a Brit, I need to praise the stand-out British performances - Eddie Redmayne's voice didn't falter once and he nailed his heart-wrenching solo, Samantha Barks is a true star that I hope comes back to the big screen again, the pairing of Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen is hilariously spectacular, little Gavroche is a scene-stealer and it was great to see members of the West End cast, including Barks, transform their characters for film. Plus, it was lovely to see France come to life on my doorstep as the Royal Naval College in Greenwich was transformed into Revolutionary Paris.

There were tiny aspects that didn't work for me - some of the lyrics, the slightly rushed feeling from time to time, the occasional strained note and perhaps unfairly I could have done with a little more dialogue - but overall, I really enjoyed this film. And it made me cry at all the right times and for all the right reasons... I have been known to cry at all the wrong times in other films...