I think the best part about Les Miserables is how deeply unforgiving Tom Hooper is towards his actors. There's no breathing space in the film, not in the tempo and not in the cinematography; he forces the camera into the faces of people playing deeply unhappy, desperate, broken people and forces the audience to take it all, every drop of that bitterness and death. When Anne Hathaway sings "I Dreamed A Dream," you have to look at her while she breaks down and weeps through the number. It is haunting, and uncomfortable, and awkward, and the only way I'm going to picture that song from now until I die.
Hooper has harnessed the power of misery in his adaptation, contrasting the narrow vision of the musical when it focuses on the circumstances of individuals with the scope of the historic event it frames. The solo numbers are framed tightly, as I mentioned above, and the group numbers are big and swelling and stirring. Almost every actor is perfection (I would have swapped Eddie Redmayne with Aaron Tveit, who plays Enjolras), even the ones I had trepidation about - while I was confident that Russell Crowe would capture the martial nature of Javert, I didn't know if he could sing. He's not as vocally strong as Hathaway or Hugh Jackman, but his rough tenor works, especially in "The Confrontation" and "Stars."
Hooper's singers are strong, but they're not perfect (well, except Samantha Barks, who plays Eponine and is completely flawless in every way), and this works for the film. No one is ever clean, and someone is usually crying. It's gritty and real without losing musicality (something that Tim Burton forgot while filming Sweeney Todd). While Redmayne wasn't my favorite, he still broke my heart singing "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." It's an extraordinarily well composed film. Jackman started strong and finished strong, but I was a little disappointed with his midshow performance, especially during "Bring Him Home;" for someone with actual Broadway experience, I wish he would have kept the song in a register he could realistically manage.
It's not all horror, though, and Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are pitch perfect as the Thenardiers. They are funny without detracting from the seriousness of the material, and absurd without being out of place. Even their costuming, garish and clownlike, meshes well with the muted color palette.
My biggest issue with the film is that even at 2 hours and 40 minutes, it feels rushed. Hooper leaves no time in between each song to let the scenes breathe; even within some of the larger numbers, he leaps from person to person in a matter of seconds, often before they've finished singing a measure. I very, very rarely say this, but here Hooper could have committed to a full three hours - or committed to shaving off a number or two, and improving the ones he kept.
Some of the camerawork was not good. Crowe in particular got the brunt of this; Hooper seemed obligated to include the same upward sweep of him almost every time Crowe was in the scene. Hooper also utilizes handheld shaky cam a few times, not enough to make it a Thing for the film but just often enough to be distracting. The weather also seemed a little out of control; it rains when Hooper needs it to rain, and stops when he needs it to stop (such as "On My Own," a small oasis of rain before the grand "One Day More" begins).
Overall, it's a gut-wrenching film, which it should be. I felt emotionally wrung out at the end, a little overwhelmed and a little exhausted. While it has flaws, I feel like they're pretty nitpicky; in general, Hooper has done a solid job of adapting this musical to film, and of making it feel cinematic.
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