A Review of Les Miserablés From Someone Who HAS Seen the Film

Well, I did it.  I went to see Les Miserablés.  You can thank the AMPAS for that.  I am on a bit of an Oscar bender at the moment.  When they announced the nominations ten days ago, there were 30 nominated full length features that I had not seen.  Now there are 22.  I know; I’m crazy.  But anyway, since I wrote a review of Les Mis prior to having seen it, I thought I ought to let you all know my opinion of the film after having seen it as well.

Les Miserablés is not a good movie.  It is not a horrible movie either, but it is just not good and I will tell you why in my exciting numbered list.  Read on!

1 – Les Miserablés is not a good musical
Now this is just 100% my opinion, and I am well aware that I am probably in the minority here, but I have seen it on stage, I have heard the soundtrack many times, and it has just never grabbed me the way it has so many others.  I know it is massively popular and successful.  I am willing to admit right off the bat that I might be wrong on this one, but I just don’t think it is good.  All of the female characters basically just sing about how they need men to save them and, other than those catchy and depressing songs, the music is kind of bland.  I do enjoy the chorus numbers, but I don’t think there is a single thing that a male lead sang that I cared about or enjoyed.  Again, just my opinion.

2 – The vocals were sung live with no post-production “sweetening”
I get the reasoning behind it.  The director wanted it raw and authentic.  I get it.  But he was wrong.  Have you ever done a recital, or performed in a show, or done a talent night, or sung in church, or done any sort of live performance and then listened to the recording later?  And is it ever as good as you remember?  No.  It is not.  Live performance comes with a certain energy that flows through the performers into the audience and creates an atmosphere where certain things can be overlooked.  People can be, well, how can I put this?  There is more leeway in the singing department when you are singing live.  But that recording afterwards does not contain the same live energy and it exposes all of the shortcomings, weird notes, and off moments that nobody noticed at the time.  Watching the movie of this musical was like watching the video of my high school talent night.  I think you just had to be there.

3 – The entire movie was a close-up of someone’s face
When Hugh Jackman was having his epiphany after the encounter with the bishop, I literally wanted to back up, but I couldn’t.  Why were we so close to his face?  Why was EVERY shot so close to everyone’s face?  This might work in a regular movie, but not in a musical.  People make weird faces when they sing.  Audiences generally have the common courtesy to sit several dozen yards back from the stage so as not to see every facial contortion that the singer makes as they try to hit those notes.  The whole thing was just a little too personal, and way too uncomfortable for me.

4 –  Almost everyone was miscast
I need to tell you something.  I actually love Les Miserablés.  It is one of my favorite movies.  It stars Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush and features a great cast with solid acting telling an exciting and meaningful story.  But once you decide that, for whatever reason, the story needs to be sung rather than spoken, you are telling me that the music is important.  In fact, it is more important than the acting.  If acting was the most important, you wouldn’t need the music to tell the story.  So casting actors who can sort of or mostly sing is inexcusable.  You need singers first, and then you pray they can act too.  Those doubly threatening people do exist.  Except they are not marquis Hollywood names and if you cast them then your movie would not get funded and be nominated for awards and stuff.  I get it.  I understand it.  It just makes your movie bad is all.  Hugh Jackman was miscast.  He could not hit the high notes fairly consistently.  Russell Crowe (who’s singing I actually liked better than Hugh’s for much of the film) was miscast.  Even (forgive me) Anne Hathaway was miscast.  Yes, she was dramatic (and I’ll get to that in a moment), but when she sang “There are tigers in the night,” that low note on night pulled me completely out of the scene.  I didn’t care how well she was acting.  The notes were not good.  This issue could have been solved in post production I suppose, except see #2.  If you can’t correctly sing the low notes or the high notes, there is a problem there.  And good acting does not excuse it.

5 – Everyone was acting like they were on stage…
When you are on stage, you need to act and project in such a manner that the people in the back of the 3rd balcony can still hear and understand you.  Big movements.  Wild facial expressions.  Over-enunciated diction.  But when the camera is two inches from your face (see #3), these things look ridiculous.  Film acting is a more subtle endeavor.  Anne Hathaway does not deserve an Oscar; she deserves a Tony.

6 – But they were singing like they were in a movie
I can’t tell you how many lines the singers dropped, or whispered, or half spoke, or actually spoke, for dramatic reasons I am assuming, rather than actually singing them.  You could never get away with this on stage, obviously.  No one would hear you.  This does not, in my humble opinion, improve the singing.  It does make it more dramatic, but please refer to #4 for my thoughts on drama vs. music.

In the end, I was not moved.  I was annoyed.  And I kind of wanted it to just be over.  I mean, it was certainly not the worst thing I have ever seen, but when I think about a great movie musical like Chicago, I think “Wow.  That was a film that took a stage musical and innovated the heck out of it to make it into a great movie.”  Les Miserablés, on the other hand, tried to mash the musical into a movie, and it just didn’t work.  But feel free to disagree.