MAXIMILIAN PATERSON
<Arts and Culture Editor>
In order to escape boring family commitments this holiday season, The Obiter Arts + Culture department sent out a team of writers to cover the most exciting cinematic release of the past few weeks, Les Miserables. Hopefully this review can provide some guidance for people interested in seeing a good movie or for people looking to push their second week readings until week five.
The first thing to say about this movie is that there is a lot of singing. Everyone sings about everything. It even gets to the point where the actors seem like they are sick of singing so they start doing a form of ‘tonal talking’. This means that the actors speak their lines to the tone of randomly chosen notes. Its sounds really weird.
Aside from the constant barrage of song, the movie itself is stunningly shot and well acted. Hugh Jackman [Jean Valjean] does a great job of accurately portraying Valjean at various points of his life. Anne Hathaway [Fantine] eerily conveys the pain and struggle of turning to a life of disease and prostitution to support her daughter. However, Samantha Barks [Eponine] steals the film vocally, making it very clear that in addition to acting, her biggest threat is her voice.
The only downside to the casting was placing Russell Crowe as Javert, the hard-lined antagonist of the film. I know Crowe has a history of singing (see 30 Odd Foot of Grunts) but his gravelly rough singing style does not lend itself well to show tunes. Its like watching Rob Ford do ballet, sure he danced well during Caribana (look for the GIF online), but that doesn’t mean he was good in the Nutcracker.
Aesthetically Les Miserables was stunning. The sets were well constructed, the extras were well dressed, and the entire mise en scene transported me to revolutionary Paris. In terms of costuming, the biggest test for a well-crafted period film is the way the actors’ teeth look. There is nothing that turns me off a film than seeing actors portraying characters in squalor and turmoil while their teeth are gleaming white. This film has teeth that match the characters, they are scary, gritty and beautifully stained.
Overall, this film is perfect for people who are fans of the original musical and who don’t mind sitting in a theater for 3 hours. The only word of warning is that you have to be prepared to hum the more popular tunes for at least a week after viewing [“Castle on a Cloud”, “I Dreamed a Dream”, “Master of the House”, “Red/Black”].
This movie gets 4 of 5 Baguettes.