Les Miserables (2012)
I just got back from watching Les Miserables and I loved it. Which, seeing that I have loved both the book and the musical based on it forever, is quite a compliment. It was colorful, emotional (I cried at the end!) and, just like the musical, managed to keep the spirit of Hugo's work despite the necessary compressions of the story (though I am always bemused that the compression results in Marius and Cosette's wedding to occur at the same day as Jean Valjean's death. Talk about the worst wedding night ever! And can you imagine future wedding anniversary celebrations? But then they do compress Marius and Cosette's courtship to one day so...)
They added some things (which I loved) and cut some (but not so much that I minded).
I had a great deal of trepidation about the cast living up to the original Broadway cast, but I was mostly pleased. My favorites were Anne Hathaway as Fantine and Eddie Redmayne as Marius - I could rewatch 'I Dreamed a Dream' and 'Empty Chairs at Empty Tables' on an eternal loop (people in the theater were sniffling at both songs, and I can totally see why). I also loved Russell Crowe as Javert (which puts me in the minority, I know) - he is not as good a singer as the theater ones, of course, but his sheer screen presence makes me not care. Ironically, the weak link for me was Hugh Jackman as Valjean. I just kept hearing Colm Wilkinson in my head and Jackman simply couldn't compare (and thus the difference between him and Crowe is apparent - Jackman is a better singer than Crowe but he doesn't have the presence to overwhelm any objective weaknesses in his singing and make any comparisons impossible).
Basically, it was great and now I want to reread the novel. It's funny, despite its interesting take on society and poverty and other things, what stands out the most in my memory are its romantic passages because I have found few other books that convey so vividly the all-consuming feeling of those first days in love. I am going to leave you with this quote from the book, because it's one of my favorite romantic passages...
“He fell to the seat, she by his side. There were no more words. The stars were beginning to shine. How was it that the birds sing, that the snow melts, that the rose opens, that May blooms, that the dawns whitens behind the black trees on the shivering summit of the hills?
One kiss, and that was all.
Both trembled, and they looked at each other in the darkness with brilliant eyes.
They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp ground, nor the wet grass; they looked at each other, and their hearts were full of thought. They had clasped hands, without knowing it.
She did not ask him; did not even think where and how he had managed to get into the garden. It seemed so natural to her that he should be there.
From time to time Marius’ knee touched Cosette’s. A touch that thrilled.
At times, Cosette faltered out a word. Her soul trembled on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower.
Gradually, they began to talk. Overflow succeeded to silence, which is fullness. The night was serene and glorious above their heads. These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their dreams, their frenzies, their ecstasies, their chimeras, their despondencies, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each other. They had confided to each other in an intimacy of the ideal, which already, nothing could have increased, all that was most hidden and most mysterious in themselves. They told each other, with a candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth and the remnant of childhood that was theirs, brought to mind. These two hearts poured themselves out to each other, so that at the end of an hour, it was the young man who had the young girl’s soul and the young girl who had the soul of the young man. They interpenetrated, they enchanted, they dazzled each other.
When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she laid her head on his shoulder, and asked him: "What is your name?"
My name is Marius," he said. "And yours?"
My name is Cosette.”
Oh, and this:
Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.