'Les Misérables: the film': 2013's most extravagant let-down?

The fanfare surrounding 'Les Misérables: the film' has been wide and hardly understated. I had eagerly anticipated viewing the film after my exams. All my friends were raving about it, and 5 star reviews and loud, colourful advertisements certainly increased the hype. So, I was shocked to find myself leaving the cinema feeling distinctly underwhelmed, almost cheated, by the quality of the performance I had just witnessed. 

I found many things at fault with 'Les Mis', but I suppose I ought to start with, what I feel, is the most glaringly apparent: none of the characters were properly developed. 

Valjean: Perhaps the most sustained character, perhaps the most convincing. Yet, I felt no sense of jeopardy whilst watching Jackman's performance. He rises and falls, but do we really care what happens to him, when we know he will always fall back into the claws of Javert, in a tedious, ridiculous game of cat and mouse, that had neither suspense nor originality. In addition, the audience was persistently subjected to his affirmations 'I am Jean Valjean', yet he, rather hypocritically, seized every opportunity to escape and eschew his true identity - incongruous to say the least!

Javert: He loves the law, we get it. Yet, with a vast metropolis of wily criminals to pursue, why does he select Valjean for his personal vendetta? It may be easier to accept why, if we were actually given any hints. (Plus, why does he explicitly hint at, and then instantaneously drop, talk of his own troubled past, during a duel with his enemy?! He was born in prison, yes, and? We're waiting for the follow-up Javert). On an unrelated side-note, his tendency to traverse the pinnacles of buildings, come on Tom Hooper - there are subtler ways to foreshadow a suicide. 

Fantine: So brief a part of the action. She had a touching back-story, but that was tragically not intimately explored by the film. It was extremely difficult to muster any sort of emotional connection with her, even in her most painful moments. Then she died, later to return as a ghost (oh the cliché). 

Cosette: A larger problem. The beautiful Amanda Seyfried seemingly baring no psychological, physical or emotional scars from the 'horrible' past she as a (one would hope) sentient and conscious ten year-old child would have remembered. Cosette, in fact, is kept on the periphery throughout the action, popping up only to produce some sickeningly sweet romantic ballads (which seem wholly discordant with the overall tone of the film).

Her love-interest, Marius, is an equally underdeveloped enigma. There is no obvious reason why he would fall in love with the (repugnantly docile) Cosette, nor any reason why he would be so stupidly oblivious to Eponine's advances.

Eponine, one of the only characters who could possibly evince sympathy (the unrequited lover, we've all been there) is equally flawed. There seems to be no tangible reason why she would idolise Marius: he seems to have nothing going for him other than revolutionary spirit, and that is fickle at best. If we are to believe in her hopeless love, harder still to believe that she is his and Cosette's willing go-between. I'm all for virtuous characters, but this seems to be pushing the boundaries of reality, especially considering her upbringing by delightfully amoral Thénardiers. 

So, I found the characters both hard to believe in and empathise with. It can't get worse than that, surely? It does. If the characters were realised half-heartedly, then so too with the tone. I agree that 'Les Mis' contains unforgettable moments of gritty, compelling cinematic brilliance; Valjean and his fellow prisoners booming a criminal's lament as they haul in a ship amidst crashing waves; Fantine's heart-breaking (and technically brilliant) oration of 'I Dreamed a Dream', shot in a single take; the rousing revolutionary spirit and song of Enjorlas' eager troops, and Marius' equally spine-tingling ballad upon his realisation that he is the sole survivor. However, these moments are brief and limited. Touching moments of individual pain are largely overridden by frivolous, and poorly executed, jovial scenes (see Thénardiers). I can see that the directors were attempting to universalise a, rather harrowing tale, yet they lost the grit, the passion, the human emotion. Everything about Les: Mis seems watered down, toned down, palatable, 12A. Valjean's suffering seems prime for development, expansion, more appalling detail: but his imprisonment ends before the audience can get a real sense of his suffering. Fantine's ballad is beautiful, yes: but how can one appreciate the lyrics without a palpable feeling and representation of her pain and violation (two seconds viewing of a grunting man lying prostrate on top of her does not seem enough). Enjorlas and the like display such potent revolutionary muster, yet it is translated into a lacklustre, un-historically accurate and rather cliché (anomalous cockney?! lad shot by French soldier, oh the outrage!) climax. So too, Marius gives the sorrowful, failed revolutionary part a go, yet almost instantaneously forgets his fallen comrades to elaborately celebrate his wedding to the insipid Cosette, whom is naive to the painful realities of post-revolution France, and the pains her new husband and his friends have experienced. The colours seemed too bright in moments of sadness, too pale in moments of joy. The tempo was upbeat in the wrong places, and faltered exactly when the audience needed lifting. Is 'Les Mis' a comedy, is it a tragedy? I argue, it does neither wholly successfully, therefore cannot be labelled an engaging gallimaufry, but a drab, half-hearted hotch-potch. 

So to my final, and possibly most blasphemous point (I'm not a musical-lover, and don't profess to be an expert on this) but, I refuse to believe I was the only person whom thought the singing was terrible? If this was a standard film, no doubt I'd be a lot more lenient with my criticism. But it isn't, it's a musical, and concurrently actor’s voice must be of a high quality - surely this is the most fundamental prerequisite when casting a musical?! Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman were, as one may expect, the worst offenders (although, Jackman's voice quality seemed to vary as sporadically as his appearance!), with the other lead characters not far behind. Credit where it is due, there were two truly awe-inspiring performances in the film, Hathaway's aforementioned ballad, and Samantha Barks' emotive 'On My Own'. Yet, two stellar songs do not make a film, and they certainly do not make a musical. Considered in isolation, they are fantastic, but they suffer because part of such an overwhelmingly lack-lustre production.

When I went into the cinema to see Les Mis, I really wanted to like it: I wanted to be sobbing my eyes out, I wanted to have found my new favourite film (Forrest Gump is hard to budge from the top spot), and I wanted to be like the millions of others whom have loved and raved about 'Les Mis'. But, I have found that Les Mis is not a testament to either our cinematic or acting advancement in 2013; it is a testament to how big companies can make big bucks, fast. Here, I'll give you a brief (and, admittedly limited) break-down of how 'Les Mis' has wowed the multitudes and raked in money and accolades abound. 

1. Select a well-known well-loved musical, that (importantly!!) has never been made into a film.
2. Get big stars on board (they don't need to be able to sing, they're big names, they speak for themselves).
3. Establish a few love-triangles, develop none. They're young and attractive, the 'reasons' (ah those pesky reasons) for their love will be obvious to the audience.
4. Include just enough stellar numbers, the ones that people will remember - so that they leave the theatre remembering Hathaway's one spellbinding performance, and not the main bulk of paltry ditties.
5. Add a few novelty characters and songs: everyone loves a laugh. 
6. Give everyone an unexplainable cockney accent - regardless of whether the film is SET IN FRANCE and the characters ARE FRENCH?! You have to appeal to your market.
7. Kill off everyone inexplicably - bound to evince abundant tears.
8. And remember, your most important tool is marketing: hype, hype, and more hype. Release a soundtrack, release rousing adverts, get people talking on social media, convince people who don't normally watch musicals that THIS IS HOW THEY SHOULD BE.

And voila, you have 'Les Miserables: the film'.

Obviously, I accept that the directors had to work with the material they had, but in 1862, did Victor Hugo envisage a cockney lad leading the rebellion, or a simpering Cosette, or that comedy would defile poignancy, or that vocal brilliance would fall by the way-side, or that complexity would be superseded by universalizability. Would Hugo have imagined any of this? I think not, and I certainly didn't envisage any of this either.

I left the cinema feeling dejected, and almost guilty for disliking a film that has captured the hearts and minds of so many.It promised so much, and delivered so little. My verdict on 'Les Mis' - a regrettably sad two stars. 

JEM.