Les Misérables 1998 movie with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush -- running commentary

[yakalskovich]

• It starts with things in an old suitcase: a ragdoll, Fantine's locket. So, probably flashbacks ahead
• Old woman tells Valjean to knock on the bishop's door, so we start in Digne. There are Baptistine and Monsieur Bienvenu, so I guess the old woman was Madame Magloire.
• Flashback to Toulon in a dream; Javert kicks him, seemingly at random.
  
• And he hits the bishop when stealing the silver -- ugh!
• Now, Javert in a coach, presumably going to Montreuil. He is a dreadful comma-counter, telling his superior -- his SUPERIOR!! -- to follow procedure.
• "If you don't allow the inspector to report, I'm afraid he will burst into tears." Says said superior to Madeleine!Valjean. Tsk!
• Snuff.
• Valjean immediately withdraws all his money from the bank.
• He buries all his money -- I think he does that in the Brick as well?
• The landlord kicks Fantine out. And then, she sells her hair to some honest hairdresser.
• The worker beneath  he cart is called Lafitte, not Fauchelevent. Why??
  
• Madeleine!Valjean reds very slowly still, using his finger.
• Javert is all suspicion and brings him something to read, and then he is sneaky and talks about 'modern police methods'.
• WTF is it with changing all the names?? Vigo, not Montreuil? And why does Javert talk about 'modern science'? He runs a census to try and catch Valjean out. Without getting permission first. What is this even?
  
• And he seems obsessed with Valjean from the start, pursuing the mayor with intent.
• Her landlord demands sex from Fantine first before she goes to prostitute herself, and Javert watches her customers abuse her and then steps in only to hit her and arrest her. Why is he so randomly violent. Even the other policeman (his captain, not superior, after all) thinks he is going too far. And how can he set her prison sentence all by himself? He keeps bending the law to some random standard of morality. That is not how you Javert!! And then, Madeleine!Valjean kicks him out of his own police station. I think that is Brick canon?
• He takes Fantine into his own home to take care of her, and then they sort of bond over neither of them knowing how to read.
• And here is Javert, demanding to be punished and dismissed. Valjean orders him to forgive himself. Somehow, Javert comes over as not quite right in the head somehow.
• Now Fantine is in the hospital, pale as death, and apparently dying. And they seem to have fallen for each other.
• What is the silly accent that Champmathieu has?
• Where do they get all the old convicts to recognise the fake Valjean, all conveniently in Arras?
• No, she is still in his house, and the nun only comes in to take care of Fantine. She still has the locket, never having sold it.
• And she dies while Javert delivers incriminations at Valjean. What's with all the violence?? Javert kicks Valjean as he is on the ground, then Valjean overpowers him,  shackles him and hits his head against the wall repeatedly. Ouch!! These two really don't like each other. And then, the captain lets him go because he is a good man and knows the inspector is inherently evil. Javert isn't inherently evil, that's the whole damn point of the story.
• WTF coach chase? Why not take a horse, which would be much faster than any coach?
• The Thenardiers seem plain and harmless, if terribly greedy and hard.
• There are two Thenardier girls again, Eponine and Azelma (one assumes, if they didn't change the names again). And Thenardier thinks Valjean wants Cosette in order to abuse her sexually, and still gives her to him -- how ick is that?
• How is Javert even telepathically intuiting what Valjean will do to enter Paris?
• Cosette meant to become a nun, even briefly? So the whole thing with the Gorbeau tenements doesn't happen, then, and they stayed in the convent all the time and move to Rue Plumet (unless they change the name) only when Cosette is almost fully grown?
• Marius is the leader of the revolutionaries here! We have no Enjolras? No Grantaire?? How can you do that to us!?
• And there is Javert, always knowing when to be where, and to say random unjust things.
• Valjean and Cosette run something like a soup kitchen stall after church on Sunday, and they know Gavroche?
• Cosette is rebellious and snarky at Valjean, a complete teen-ager, and utterly disrespectful.
• He says he's not a father! He's a better father than most actual fathers that I know of.
• One of the amis is black, and nobody says a word about it. On the other hand, gens de couleur libres were a thing in New Orleans, and they travelled to France and were treated perfectly normally there. So he's probably one of those.
• Javert is following the revolutionaries, and Cosette comes to his attention because of her love affair with Marius, the top revolutionary. And then he comes to their house and pesters Cosette. I find that version of Javert and Cosette in the same room scary.
• And now he hits Cosette, and she screams and rails at him.
• And then, he tells her all -- THIS early in the story. All the truth, from stealing the bread onwards.
• And the name Cosette is what gives them away to Javert -- and then, the house in Rue Plumet is empty!
• Rue de l'Ouest instead of Rue de l'Homme Armé? What is it with changing all the names?
• Despite the uprising, Javert wants to go after Valjean only, instead of trying to work with the rest of the police.
• I hate all the Javert-Cosette interaction. I think those two shouldn't even meet -- WTF she kicks him to the ground and points his own gun at him?? What? Cosette as Action Girl?
• Now, in the alley, there finally is a bit of the Foe Yay that is so typical for the interaction between Javert and Valjean. Before, it was all straight enmity, and random obsessiveness.
• Javert returns to duty awfully soon. He barely had time to get changed.
• They simply execute all the remaining amis where they stand, tied up and helpless. That is a bit unlawful even for that time.
• There is no Eponine at all, and no Thenardiers in Paris. That entire arc has been cut. They are introduced in Montfermeil (or whatever they were calling it), and then they are lost again.
• Javert lets Valjean go with Marius and his underlings, as he promises to return, and just looks at the fiacre as it leaves.
• Javert sits by the Seine, making a bluescreen kind of face, and writing. His laundry list of You're Doing It Wrong? Memo to the prefect about what he is doing to the prisoner? What??
• Javert does his entire BSOD thing at Valjean? He is planning to shoot him there, at the riverbank?
• Nope, he lets him go, shackles himself, and lets himself backwards into the Seine right in front of Valjean!!
• That is in Paris. I have been there, and remember that square in the back, I am pretty sure. So that was the actual Pont au Change?? Where was that spiky Palais de Justice? I researched that place on Wiki and Google Maps only today, for reasons.
  
• Valjean smiles heavenwards, happy to be free, and walks away. We see the Isle de la Cité. End credits roll. No wedding, no Thenardiers, no death of Valjean. He just walks back into his life, apparently glad that this demented tick named Javert is dead.
  

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