Every Hugh Jackman film becomes more fun if you assume that he's still Wolverine, just at a different point in time
I very nearly didn't bother writing anything after watching Les Miserables because, as we've encountered before, if ever you were going to watch this film, you probably already have. However, I thought I would crack out a quickie review because the film did end up presenting an interesting challenge for movie criticism. Suitably intrigued? Then we'll begin.
To break down the critical aspects of a musical, I find you are most concerned with "How does it look?", "How does it sound?" and "How was it acted?". The look of Les Miserables is terrific, it does well what so many other book and stageplay adaptations fail to do, which is to give it a cinematic beauty, without resorting to big action setpieces that weren't in the originals for the sole reason that "Well, you couldn't have done that on stage!". A particular example is the barricade, which I have found in live performances often look either too well-built or not well-built enough, cheifly due to the danger of having your actors crawling over broken kitchen furniture. On the silver screen, however, that sense of debris-turned-fortress, is captured perfectly.
The music in the film has been discussed to death due to the interesting, if potentially ill-advised, decision on behalf of the director to have the actors voices recorded on stage, rather than in a studio. The music suffers as a result, there is no way around it, though there is a trade off - the emotion being acted comes through much more strongly, with the actors choking up while singing or screaming a line in rage rather than melody. All in all though, I'm left with the feeling that if I wanted to hear live voices, I'd see it live. I'm watching the movie because with a studio, you can mask problems with actors like Russell Crowe, clearly cast for his acting rather than his singing. Though it is interesting to note that I am a little suspicious of how diligently the "no studio singing" idea was upheld. The group scenes in particular must have been captured with a space-age boom mic to get the sound quality they did if it was not done in post. But I'm not a sound editor, so I could be wrong.
Pictured: Space-age boom mic? Maybe?
The acting is generally good, not great, with the exception of Anne Hathaway who was rightfully rewarded for an astonishing performance. Hugh Jackman holds his end up and outclasses Russell Crowe in almost every way. Eddie Redmayne is adorable, I mean, come on, did you see that Oscar acceptance speech?
So all in all, you'd expect me to be pleasantly surprised, perhaps? "Meh" with a side of "OK, I'll admit bits of it worked"? So why then was my reaction more like this:
But...you know...manlier...
This reaction led me to an interesting conclusion: It seems that the story and the music of Les Miserables is so good of its own account that even not-so-great productions can have a profound effect on the audience. Now, yes, I'm not exactly breaking down any critical walls by saying "Hey guys, Les Miserables is good!", but it did get me thinking about how far this phenomenon extends. Is it as popular as it is because the source material is so good that it's actually difficult to do badly? Is it the same for Phantom of the Opera? Cats? More to the point, how do you review it? Must stories like these be held to stricter standards, since even the bad versions will be good? Should we be encouraging or discouraging studios to take on these classic tales that, in many ways, are safe bets regardless of the effort that is put in? Or perhaps these stories can only be considered in relation to other productions of the same tale, i.e. "The movie is bad, because the stage musical was better."
It's difficult to quantify of course, but it does cause one to wonder: how many stories can claim to be so well-made that they literally transcend criticism?
An interesting thought, if not revolutionary.
Vive Rosebud est un Traineau!
That's a wrap.
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