'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.

'Everything Must Go'.

This blog, as the name might give away, is supposed to be about all things literary. Oddly, my first post is not about literature, but a film (inspired by a piece of literature, of course). I recently stayed at a spa which had a DVD library. The library was not available for public viewing, instead we were given a list of names of films with no descriptions as to there genre's or content, just names (very cryptic). Looking through the list I saw the standard rom-coms, tragedies, classics. One name stood out, perhaps because of its sheer blandness, its non-descriptiveness 'Everything Must Go', it gave nothing away. Intrigued I googled it (where would we be without the iPhone?!) and found that it was a comedy starring Will Ferrel based on the short story 'Why don't you dance' from Raymond Carver's 1981 collection 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love'. Now, I am in no way spiritual, I don't believe in fate or destiny (in fact I'm cringing in anticipation of what I'm about to write) yet, at that moment, I felt like I was predetermined to watch this film. I recently completed my first year at University studying ENglish LIterature and one of my courses for the second term was Contemporary Writing, a course where one of the books we were assigned to read was Carver's 'Cathedral'. I instantly fell in love with his sparse, elliptical style, fascinated by the momentary glimpses into the lives of Midwestern American suburbanites. I subsequently composed an essay on the collection, one of few essays I can honestly say that I've enjoyed (and agonised over) completing. So, when the term was over the first book I ordered 'for the pleasure' (as opposed to task) of reading, was Carver's 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love': a collection which further compounded my recent acclamation of Carver as 'one of my all-time favourite writers'. So, my expectations were, as you might expect, high.

'Everything Must Go' follows the trials and tribulations of 'Nick Halsey', who salesman loses his job and comes home to find his wife has changed the locks and placed all his possessions on the front lawn. In order to legally stay on the front lawn, Halsey must technically be holding a 'Yard Sale', which he does, befriending a young boy named Kenny and his new neighbour Samantha along the way.  

A primary aspect of Nick's character is his alcoholism, and its portrayal is one aspect of the film that I found particularly interesting. Alcohol/alcoholism is a heavily used motif in Carver's work, and it is an affliction which frequently debilitates his various characters (as it famously did to the author himself). I found that Dan Rush (the Director) really captured the sense of Nick's dependence on alcohol, and not in the charged (and comic) scene where he demands credit from a mini-mart worker, but in invariably more discreet ways. 'Nick' is rarely without a can of beer in his hand; as he drives home from work, as he sorts his belongings, or as he engages with other characters - but the beer is never the focal point. As in Carver's stories, the alcohol abuse is continuous, constant, yet subtle - ingrained into the characters being rather than being an exaggerated action. Ferrell's supping of beer is exercised with the fluidity of breathing, the can almost an integrated part of his body rather than a prop. Here Rush has communicated cinematically what Carver communicates in his writing - the naturalness of alcoholism. Despite the occasional stereotypical alcoholic outbursts, the abuse remains discreet and as a result is paradoxically suggestive and apparent. 

Another element of the film I enjoyed, although it is not fully explored in 'Why Don't You Dance?', is the desperation and sadness of the character of Nick Halsey. I have only ever seen Will Ferrell in farcical comedy roles before, and I have to admit I questioned his ability to convey sufficient seriousness for this role. Yet I was pleasantly surprised. Ferrell is a brilliant actor, and he convincingly conveys an impression of Halsey's utter isolation. For a main portion of the film we see Halsey struggling to hold his own and predominantly looking from the outside inwards; he gets woken by sprinklers, he struggles to cycle with his shopping, he has his Slurpee knocked over, he has his car driven away. All these moments are bittersweet snapshots of everyday life. They are funny yes, but simultaneously sad - there is an overwhelming sense that Nick is completely alone in these situations, and at the mercy of the power of others, unable to confront the problems which face him. These moments are additionally evocative because of their overwhelming and uncanny normality; these things can, and do, happen to us. In that sense we could be one spilled drink away from Nick Halsey; one disaster away from the rapid spiral that results in the impromptu sale of your life's work and possessions. Although Carver does not provide us with all this back-story in his story, it does not feel like an offense or an overstep, the lonesomeness and isolation Rush communicates seems befitting to Carver's style, and to the character of Halsey. 

Now, I fully appreciate that film cannot fully imitate literature - particularly when Carver gives you so little to go on - but Rush gives us the back-story we never really ask for. The beauty of Carver's stories are their shortness, their succinctness, and most importantly - what they don't say. In 'Why Don't You Dance?' there is no 'Nick Halsey', no 'Kenny', no 'Catherine.' There is no lost job, no lost car, no new neighbor, no friendly kid, no betraying friend. Yes, understandably, these elements are necessary to pad out the story and give it weight - yet the specificness of a name, a place, a history destroys the intrigue originally found in 'Why Don't You Dance?'. In Carver's story the protagonist is interesting because he is so non-descript, so unexplained, and because his actions (namely setting up on the lawn and selling his possessions as if this were normal) defy all reasonable logical and social etiquette. If you give him a reason for being on the lawn and a reason for selling his stuff, he becomes another rational, pragmatic human being - and that is certainly not what Carver's characters are. 

Despite my criticism of the film, I did enjoy it. Yet I don't think it can warrant that it is based on 'Why Don't You Dance?'. What I was waiting for, throughout the entire film, was for someone (anyone) to dance. The most engrossing moment in Carver's story is when the young couple, coerced by the man, do actually dance. It is a paradoxical moment of lightness combined with immense tension. The man gives the couple a taste of alcohol - the alcohol that debilitated him can momentarily free them, it can give them joy and release their inhibitions , a quality that he himself has become immune to. In the story the man also dances with the girl, and all Carver's focus is on the human contact between them; 'he felt her breath on his neck', 'she pushed her face into the man's shoulder'. A gap is bridged, he is lifted, he can dance. In the film we miss these two successive, profound moments - we miss the moment where perhaps the man could go back and take the place of the boy, where he could dance. When Nick shares a hug with Samantha at the end of the film, there is the tantalizing possibility that they could dance - but they do not. Perhaps this withheld dancing is an intentional deprivation on Rush's part, sparked by a worry of being too literal with Carver's story. Or perhaps, Rush uses the moment to thwart the audience's epistempohilia - the hug showing a degree of human contact that is similar, but not the same, as the dance that we anticipate. Whatever motivates Rush's exclusion of the dancing scene it is, for me, a flaw. Carver's stories delight in ephemeral, miraculous moments of human contact overcoming the incapacity of self-imposed exile. If you add too many of those moments, you upset the tenuous equilibrium between hopelessness and hope - risking sentimentalization of Carver's work. However, if you remove or intrinsically modify those crucial moments (as Rush has done) you eradicate the glint of salvation that shines amidst the desolation of Carver's writing. I'm afraid a hug just doesn't cut it, I wanted them to dance...why didn't they dance?. 

As I often find with films, they do not live up to the literature upon which they were based. However, despite its flaws, 'Everything Must Go' still resounded very strongly with me. Discovering it really was like finding a treasure in a yard-sale. Amongst the clutter of the in-your-face comedies and cliched romances I found this unheard of film which meant something to me.