Les Misérables: Feels as Long as the French Revolution, yet Jackman and Hathaway are Well Worth It

Seeing the running time at 158 minutes, and knowing that this movie adaptation of the stage musical was filmed with most of the dialogue (and all the musical numbers) sung live on set, I knew that Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables (Les Mis) was going to be a commitment. I knew it was going to be a grand, epic, dramatic commitment, which it is, I just had no idea it would feel so drawn out in some areas, making it feel way longer than its 158 minutes.

I commend Hooper’s attempt, and with that said, the opening scene/number is huge and just what you want in that grand, epic, dramatic commitment. Hugh Jackman’s Jean Valjean and his fellow prisoners pull on thick ropes, guiding a gigantic ship into its dock. Waves of water pound onto them; they all sing Look Down, as Russell Crowe’s relentless Javert stands policing in the rain.



Valjean, a.k.a. number 24601, is released by Javert and seeks refuge in a church. This is where he truly repents to God and decides to begin his life anew. Jackman performs Valjean’s Soliloquy in the church with such raw emotion. Dropping down on his knees, singing right up into the camera, the single tear begins to flow. This is the first of many times where you see just how much Jackman really deserves his Oscar nomination.



And speaking of Oscar nomination (and let’s face it future winner), Anne Hathaway goes for broke. Her character, Fantine, the factory worker turned street prostitute, is determined to sell just about anything on her person to send money back home to the vile innkeepers “taking care” of her daughter, Cosette. And when the song, I Dreamed A Dream begins, you know you’re about to see and hear something special. Hathaway sells it beautifully and gives everything, and not just during this song, but also during a scene where an incredibly ill Fantine rests in a convent bed. Get the speech ready, Anne.

Jackman and Hathaway are outstanding, and so is the performance by the stage actress, Samantha Barks, who plays Èponine, the daughter of the innkeepers as a young woman. After setting her sights on a young student revolutionary, Marius, played by Eddie Redmayne (My Week with Marilyn), she becomes the victim of unrequited love, as he is taken with Cosette as a young woman, played by Amanda Seyfried. Besides I Dreamed A Dream, the other famous song in Les Mis is On My Own, and Barks delivers it wonderfully in the rain. She is such a natural, you forget this is not mimed to a prerecorded track, but filmed and recorded live on set.



It’s after Barks’ number where the film becomes drawn. Hooper understandably can’t break from the original material; it is what it is. This section that showcases the student uprising and the barricade in the streets falls, well, “flat” for me. Furniture in a mound; cannons rolling in; more talk-singing; more Red and Black; more crying; more death; more of Russell Crowe’s Javert singing on rooftops, trying to come to terms with his wicked ways toward Valjean. As the torches are lit and flags are waved and dropped, this is my cue to readjust my body in its theater seat, as I know this is gonna take awhile.

When we do reach the end of Les Mis, it’s satisfying, but it's basically all about Jackman’s final scene. Les Mis is a unique effort and is definitely to be commended, if only for casting Jackman and Hathaway, in career-defining roles they were meant to play. BSo