Les Miserables

The most successful musical of all time is always going to come to the cinema with significant expectations. With Tom Hooper, the Oscar winning director of ‘The King’s Speech,’ combined with an all-star cast including Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, Universal Pictures have clearly gone all out to try and make this the best of all the Les Mis adaptations. However, this dire, stale, vacuous mess of a film is one of the tamest efforts of an epic ever attempted.

The problem with having such a great cast of actors for a musical is they are sometimes not quite capable of achieving the necessary gusto the song requires. While Jackman was impressive, Crowe, Hathaway and especially Eddie Redmayne, struggled to sound bothered or emotional in their songs. None of them were out of tune but with such powerful songs, mediocrity was too often accepted by the director. When Crowe and Hathaway were allowed to act, they were their usual impressive selves. Crowe’s death scene was possibly the best scene in the film due to his charismatic screen-presence.

However, by far the biggest problem with this picture is the man behind the camera. It never fails to amaze me of the lack of imagination that this director possesses combined with the amount of acclaim he has achieved for doing such a poor job with his films so far. Many scenes were basically ruined by his habit of cutting a shot after it had been on screen for less than a second. His use of close-ups every other shot was powerful during some early scenes but after two hours of seeing the same technique repeatedly, it grew visually tiresome. There was even a scene with Redmayne, who plays Marius, just standing in a room singing. The sequence of shots, for three minutes, was close up, wide shot, close up, wide shot etc and with Redmayne’s face contorting into a ridiculous shape whenever he did vibrato, it wasn’t too pleasant. It’s difficult to believe many audiences out there will enjoy so many close ups of shouty, emotionless singing – I get enough of that on Youtube thanks. Hooper got his actors to sing live on set in order to create a more intimate feel but the feeling I got was one of underwhelming awkwardness.

What’s worse is that Hooper, we are told, is Britain’s shining directing star. He is not. He is the most old fashioned bore currently working in the industry with the possible exception of Clint Eastwood. If cinema is the constantly evolving industry we are told it is, then why is such brainless filmmaking being accepted as significant? While his films keep bagging the awards, inventive and ambitious filmmakers languish in the background. Some people need to realise that throwing money at set design is not in any way ambitious filmmaking. Hooper needs to find new ways of telling stories without resorting to cliché and amateurish cinematography.

If it weren’t for some decent performances, the film would have been disastrous. Samantha Barks, who plays Eponine, is actually far too good for the size of part she plays. In fact, she outshines Amanda Seyfried, who is Marius’ love interest Cosette, to such an extent that Marius’ love for Cosette comes across as rather disappointing considering he has Eponine chasing after him too. Also, Sacha Baron-Cohen and Helena Bonham-Carter revel in their roles as the villainous Master and Lady of the House. They brightened up a film, which offered so little to get excited about.

There will be many who go to this film and come away satisfied with the product. In terms of being a musical, with such stirring classics as ‘Do You Hear the People Sing’ and ‘On My Own’, it was always going to be successful due to the material present in the original musical. However, in terms of filmmaking, it fails miserably. Hooper has drained this film of life and manages to turn Hugo’s iconic storyline feel like an extended episode of Eastenders. For a film about inspiring revolutionaries bringing in a new era, it is rather ironic that the film is made in such a turgid, old-fashioned manner.

2 stars