Saw this last night. Cried like a baby at the end. It's emotional heart string pulling of the most obvious sort, but it works. Anne Hathaway chews the scenary to bits, but gives the definitive "I dreamed a dream" performance that actually had the audience in the cinema clapping. Jackman is more than solid. The actress playing Eponine makes you wonder what on earth Marius sees in Cosette not her. Definitely one to see with other half, and bring tissues
That would be Samantha Barks. And that's funny, I'd heard they played up Éponine's creepy stalker-with-a-crush tendencies for the movie. I haven't seen it yet, but as a big Les Mis (and Tom Hooper) fan I'm looking forward to it.
That'd be a very interesting direction to go in, too. I guess it's sort of a backlash effect that seems to be happening within the fic community, too (so someone claimed somewhere, anyway) where the support for Éponine-should-have-and-deserves-Marius-and-screw-Cosette-that-bitch seems to be waning a bit. It would be true to the novel, also, and should be an intriguing take on the character all the while taking her roots seriously.
That's basically my least favorite interpretation of Les Mis (closely followed by "Fantine and Valjean were in love!"). Not only because it's nonsensical, but because the backlash has lead to a lot of people just turning in the opposite direction and whining about what a terrible character Eponine is and how all her songs suck, etc. As someone who thinks that Éponine can be a pretty great character when played by the right actress, this annoys me. However, from what I've heard from Samantha Barks in the movie, she's definitely the right actress. I'm also glad that Cosette is being played by someone with a soft, gentle-sounding voice instead of a wannabe opera star who belts out her notes at the very-tip-top of her range. I feel like a lot of Cosettes mistake acting for "singing really high while looking confused."
I'm not fond of the "Javert clearly just wants to catch Valjean because he looooves him" parts, either, but I'm generally not fond of people being very vocal and stubborn about their headcanon applying to canon. Like or hate the character is fine, but some people seem to find it's paramount everyone thinks like them, and that always gets my goat. That said, Éponine is my favourite character apart from Inspector Javert*, and part of that is presicely that she IS extremely aware of the futility of her crush on Marius and more or less just acknowledges "I'm holding on to a dream image of him because I have literally nothing left in the world." That said she IS a crazy stalker (if not as bad as Mr. Pontmercy himself is in the book) by most parameters, and it doesn't hurt the character to show it. *Who will always hold a special place in my heart because he helped me actually understand what Weber meant about the iron cage of rationality.
Went and saw it this morning. Really impressed. Anne Hathaway indeed has unseated Patti Lupone as the definitive "I Dreamed A Dream" performance. I thought it was an interesting choice for that piece (and a lot of the solos with the exception of Javert's two) to cut in really tight on the actor's face and let them carry with expression and emotion what they might not have been able to with voice.
I went in to this prepared. Listened to the soundtrack, found out exactly what was cut, made my peace with it as a fan of the show. First, it was probably the most packed theatre I've ever been in, holy crap. We had a very solemn audience; a few laughs here and there, but no loud crying, no sing alongs, and a short round of clapping at the end. The actors were amazing. All of them, Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne-- everyone. I was especially impressed by Russel Crowe's performance. I was highly skeptical, but I think he's now one of my favorite Javerts. A very nice, nuanced performance. All the Amis were great as well, and their Enjolras was a pleasant surprise. My only complaint was that I thought some of the fast-moving scenes and montages-- Valjean getting turned away, Master of the House-- moved a bit too quickly. But I understand that it takes a lot of editing to get all this story to fit into 2 1/2 hours, and I'd rather have this quick-cutting than cutting songs. You just can't have everything in a Les Mis movie, and I think Hooper made the right decisions. The close ups created a great sense of emotion; it's the kind of thing that would only work with fantastic performances, which fortunately this movie has in abundance. Overall just a really great movie and one of the best musical movies. I loved all the little details from the book, and the casting of Colm Wilkinson was just perfect. Also, a comment from the lady exiting the theatre behind me: "I saw this movie a few years ago, but it didn't have singing then."
I wonder if she means the 1998 version by Bille August? I can't remember any later Les Mis movies and I only remember that one because Bille is Danish - that had the "Valjean is so in love with Fantine" narrative stupidity, even though Geoffrey Rush made a very good Javert. Funny how that seems common for Australian actors, but I guess when the white population there did originiate as a penal colony, technically they were all 'born inside a jail' I am just digressing because I am so intensely jealous of all of you. I want to watch it, already!
Yeah, I think so. It's on TV a lot, so it's reasonable she might have seen it in the last few years. She and the guy next to her then got in an argument about whether it was lip-synced (he was sure it was). It sucks the release date in your country is so much later. At least it'll probably be less crowded than a Christmas Day release? All the theaters around here were sold out, it was crazy. Have you seen the 1934 adaption directed by Raymond Bernard? It's apparently quite faithful to the book (at the cost of being 4 1/2 hours long).
I think I may watch this on New Year's as the first of the month is cheap day in Japan. I read the CNN review but it didn't seem very favourable. I loved the 1998 version with Liam Neeson.
There was also a French miniseries in 2000 with Gerard Depardieu as Valjean and John Malkovich as Javert (and Asia Argento as Eponine), which was the latest version I saw. Almost seven hours long.
The CNN reviewer (which is actually just a repost from Entertainment Weekly, unless there's another review from CNN) clearly didn't like the musical to begin with: Which is sort of like saying "I hate Batman, and this Dark Knight movie sucks! C-"
Forgot about that one, yes. I think the Girls Next Door dA comic even had a throwaway joke that Javert was Being John Malkovic because the artist had been watching it lately. There was a film version on youtube a while back which is the only other one I watched. Anthony Perkins was Javert and Gavroche had no eyebrows, is what I remember most clearly. It also gets points for, while cutting away Éponine again, actually including Monsieur Gillenormand, who will always be my favourite even if he is a dirty old man.
That'd be the 1978 version. And you will probably be pleased to know that M. Gillenormand is in the most recent movie as well, and even gets to sing a little bit and tell Marius he's a disappointment.
When he appeared I knew the book was worth it. If Hugo can make a conservative, by most accounts cruel and prejudiced, old man so charming and sympathetic by virtue of his writing, even the tangents were worth it. Though, on the subject of the review, Les Mis, book and musical both have had a long history of bad reviews on the subject of cultural snobbishness. The musical moreso because the critics when it premiered was evenly divided between posh papers who thought it was a travesty to the great art that was the book and the sunday papers complaining it was too heavy and depressing to be a proper musical.
And then Cameron Mackintosh calls up the box office to see how much they've lost and finds out they've sold out the entire week. Or something along those lines.
Pretty much how they told it on the TAC DVD extras, anyway. They also got standing ovations in Vienna, which is apparently very unusual for Austria.
Sure, we have Les Mis and Chicago and Rent, but where is my big budget film version of Titanic or Spider-Man Turn off the Dark? (or wicked seriously i mean it)
Saw it last night. I had never seen (or read) any version of Les Mis before, although my wife introduced me to the first half of the story via the original Broadway soundtrack. Really enjoyed it, for the most part. Great performances, I didn't feel like any of the actors were weak or didn't pull it off. I was fascinated by the direction -- the long LONG close-up shots during songs, for example. Loved Javert and Eponine particularly. Some thoughts that might be spoilers for other viewers like me...
I caught an early morning matinee today, because I knew there was no way I'd be able to convince my SO to go with me. I was most surprised by Crowe. That man can sing! One complaint -- I don't know if it was the crappy theater I was in or if it was just shoddy camerawork, but there were a couple of scenes where someone would start singing and their head would be cut off. Did anyone else run across/notice that? Other than that, and Seyfreid's warble, I thought it was great all around. I really wanted to sing along at parts (but it was a crowded theater even that early in the day, so I spared the other theater goers) and Hathaway's "I Dreamed a Dream," and Redmayne's "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" both made me tear up a bit. Oh! And it was a fun bit of trivia, and very apropos that Colm Wilkinson, the original Valjean, played the bishop in the film. :D
I thought that was such a nice touch, too. The original Jean passing the torch to Jackman, so to say. I was really glad when I heard he was in it.
Athryn completely cut off, or just the top of their head? I remember being able to see Javert's face in the sewer scene.
Like the first 5 seconds, half of his head was cut off. I believe it happened at the beginning of Stars, as well.
Saw this today, loved it. I've seen the show three times (including the original Broadway cast back in 1987) and each time it had gotten more operatic, so that by the third time (sometime in the mid-90's) Valjean was played by a portly tenor-type. I'm glad this went the opposite way, but sometimes I missed the bombast. Funny thing, I was least impressed by Hugh Jackman. I think his singing is too nasal. He needs to get over the note, instead of singing up to it. His best bit was during "Bring Him Home" when he got some nice tone. Russel Crowe was a pleasant surprise. My wife noted that he wasn't singing in any of the previews or "making of" things that have been floating around, and that was a bad sign. I thought he was perfectly fine. Anne Hathaway is going to get an Oscar. She's only in about a half hour, but she totally steals the whole movie. Her song isn't even my favorite song and she just kicks its ass. Not a dry eye in the house. I kind of wished there had been a turntable in there somewhere just to make me laugh. Those poor bastards had to sing on a moving stage 8 times a week for years, and I'm pretty sure everyone hated that turntable by the time they left the show. There were a surprising number of walkouts during my showing. It was a matinee-- 12:20, so it was mostly older adults, not really teen date night. We had probably 10-20 people leave. How do they not know what they're getting into after Les Mis being around for about 25 years?
This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. This is the sort of movie I would expect from a director AND editor that has never seen the play. They changed so many lines and so many scenes it didn't even make fucking sense/ Gavroche delivers a letter to Valjean? What? THAT'S NOT HOW IT FUCKING GOES! When they escaped Paris, did they go back for the candlesticks? Cause that didn't make any fucking sense. Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway being amazing (Hugh Jackman sounded just like Colm in most of the scenes) could not save this disaster of a movie. They ruined the fucking Confrontation. How the fuck--WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? Why would you cut out Valjean's lines there at the end? Why wouldn't you have the reprise? Why would you cut out where Eponine teases Marius but then have him say he likes how she always teases? SHE DIDN'T FUCKING TEASE YOU! And then later have her say her line about how she told him she knows things when SHE NEVER FUCKING SAID IT IN THAT FIRST SCENE CAUSE IT WAS ALL CHANGED! Oh my god. I fucking hate it. I would have walked out if I hadn't been with my mother. I do not know how you fuck up something like this when there are plenty of recordings out there that would tell you exactly what scene follows what and HOW TO FUCKING DO IT. I'm not even going to go into how Javert is awful. So fucking awful. How did no one notice he was that awful while filming? How!? Jean Valjean didn't even have a fucking chest tattoo. Fuck this movie. I own every single version of the soundtrack for this show, I've seen the play a billion times...this is fucking awful. I'm glad Bahimiron wasn't with us cause he would have set the theater on fire. Edited to add: No, no. There's more I hated about this movie. Amanda Alieneyeswhatever you do not fucking WARBLE when you sing. That was like the first thing I was ever taught. Don't fucking warble! WHY ARE YOU WARBLING?! And what was with changing the order of lines SO THAT THEY THEN WOULDN'T RHYME!? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!? Who was like "You know what would make this better? If we make it just sound really fucking awful." P.S. The "Oooooooooooon" at the end of Javert's Suicide is long FOR A REASON YOU ASSHOLES! Not so that he can say "On!" then jump. Also I cannot stress enough how awful Javert was. He was awful. Really awful. P.P.S. Marius, Eponine, Gavroche, and Enjolras were great. So were the parts where they stuck to the fucking script--most of the end. Gavroche's death. It made me sad thinking of how great the rest of it could have been.
That was in the book. There's a lot of changes to make it closer to the book and not be an exact filmed representation of the stage show but a movie by itself; almost like an abridged adaption of the book that happens to be told by the stage show's songs. I understand if you don't like it because of that but there were reasons for all the changes.
Quacker's post is way more melodramatic than the movie (which was very melodramatic). Perhaps it could be set to song. I've never seen the stage musical nor seen any other adaptation. I also haven't read the 20,000 page novel, so I went in without knowing anything more than the pop culture cues. I enjoyed it, though I found it flawed. The friend I saw it with commented on how faithful to the book it was, right down to the series of amazing coincidences that drive the plot to the instant romance between Cosette and Freckle Face. It dragged in a few places and I could have lived with one fewer mopey Hugh Jackman number. There were times when prose would have worked better to convey things vs. singing virtually everything and the close-ups during a few songs felt awkward to me, as if the director thought that having the camera fixed on the actor's face for three minutes would bring out the emotion or something, instead of coming off as slightly unnerving. But for the most part the cast handled themselves well. I especially liked that the singing was recorded live and not dubbed in later, something that was worked to full advantage. Also, I'm pretty sure Helena Bonham Carter played the same character in Sweeney Todd.
Quackers - the original cut was four hours long; it'd be impossible to edit that down to a more manageable (and viewable) length and not deviate somewhat from the show.
Four hours long is a bit of an exaggeration, as that includes all the footage of, for example, the actors sitting around waiting for the take to start-- stuff that gives the editor breathing room and was always meant to be taken out. But it could still easily have been half an hour longer.
That they changed it to be more like the book is absurd considering all the commercials bill it as being a movie adaptation of the musical. So trying to make it "it's own thing" is stupid. If they wanted to do that, write a whole new fucking musical. Cutting isn't a valid excuse for all the ridiculous changes the movie has. Even if it had been longer, it would still have been awful. I am honestly shocked when I hear that a fan of the show liked the movie. A lot of my friends are Broadway performers/Opera singers and we all share the same snobby opinion that this movie was trash! I was super excited to go see it and it was just awful. I cannot repeat that word enough: awful. The best parts of the movie were the ones that stuck to the script. If they had done that all the way through, it might have been great. Except for a few weird casting choices.
Possible legitimate complaint - less about the movie than the plot in general: We never have a chance to forget your name, Javert! You say it every seven minutes throughout the entire film! Javert is obviously a Law-type Pokemon or something.
I do wonder if he does it as much in French and it's just in English it makes such a good rhyme to most things. Like 'there', 'dare', 'here', 'scare'. You could even make it rhyme to 'Mayor' with some tweaking. Valjean pretty much only rhymes with 'on'. Amusingly i am realizing to get the national accent here on it it would be pronounced roughly as a word that means 'big thing'. Ja-wo-rrrt. Now I'm tempted to look up Danish lyrics to watch them try and get ANYTHING to rhyme with that.
Popping in to say, I prefer that the movie is similar to the book being in that it is the original and ''purest'' version. It hardly seems fair to hate something for deviating from an adaptation. Regarding some castings, ALL THOSE CLOSE-UPS, and such, I have some qualms as well. Are the scenes from the musical that different from the movie? If so, I might have angrily stormed out of a musical version without knowing beforehand. I have strict adherence to ''The book was better'' except for Harry Potter because they exactly followed the books and man, looking at people fly around on broomsticks is awesome. Well, that's only for books I've read. Lord of the Rings was apparently much more amazing than the books and I can't argue having not read them and being amazed at the detail and design in the first movie. Whoops, I digress, point is: Movie was pretty good, should have been longer (in contrast to my opinion on the book. Did I really have to read 7 chapters going into excruciating detail about the Battle of Waterloo?), everybody is entitled to their own opinion as long it doesn't offend somebody else's in a unjust manner.
