Les Miserables lacks life
Les Miserables A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1998 By Michael Redman
**1/2 (out of ****)
Can a person fundamentally change? This is a question that has been plaguing philosophers ever since our ancestors sat around their campfires discussing the nature of things. Is there such a such a state as redemption?
French convict Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson) and Inspector Javert (Geoffrey Rush) are at opposite ends of the spectrum when answering this conundrum. In this version of Victor Hugo's classic novel - there have been at least 15 others - their interactions are at the core of the film.
Valjean skips out on his parole after serving 19 years in an early 19th century prison for the crime of stealing bread to eat. Encountering a kind monsignor who forgives him after the criminal steals, Valjean turns his life around. Years later he has somehow become wealthy, owns a factory and is mayor of the small town of Vigau.
When Javert arrives as the new prefect of police, he believes that he recognizes Valjean from the days when he was a prison guard. Because once a man is a criminal, he's always a criminal ("Reform is a discarded fantasy"), he sets out to expose the mayor's past.
Valjean's factory is a tight ship. He demands clean living from his workers, going as far as separating the sexes in the work place. When Fantine (Uma Thurman) is found to be an unwed mother, she is dismissed. Without an income, she is forced into prostitution to make money to support her daughter.
Later Valjean saves her from brutality and jail time at the hands of Javert. Incarceration turns out to be the least of Fantine's worries: she is dying of tuberculosis. Her last wish is for her benefactor to care for her daughter.
He decides to flee when his history is brought to light, either by Javert's scheming or Valjean's morality. The film doesn't make it clear. Gathering up Fantine's daughter Cosette, they sneak into the heavily guarded city of Paris. They live in a convent shut off from the outside world for 10 years until the now-grown girl (Claire Danes) decides that she doesn't want to take vows.
The two set up a soup kitchen to feed Paris' teeming poor and who should show up but Javert. He is able to track Valjean down by following Marius (Hans Matheson), a revolutionary leader who has fallen in love with Cosette. Amidst the backdrop of one of several French revolts in the early 1800s, the final showdown between the two life-long rivals is played out.
The film is epic in scope with impressive sets and costuming, but there are some major flaws. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to translate Hugo's 1,000-plus page book into a two-hour film. The story encompasses 20 years, dozens of characters and is heavy on internal dialogue. Not the stuff of successful films.
Screenwriter Rafael Yglesias took the impossible task and cut the novel to the core out of necessity. He concentrates on struggle between Valjean and Javert, eliminating many characters and sub-plots. While he had no choice but to drop most of the book, some of his other choices are dubious. In the book Valjean is not violent but in the film, he often uses his fists to prove his point.
Neeson is his usual grand brooding self and portrays the reformed brute with a quiet passion. Thurman eats up the screen as the dying whore providing the most lively character in the film. Rush's obsessed cop who lives in fear of breaking a rule is interesting, but there isn't much range in the character. None of the rest of the actors are anything more than adequate and some not quite so.
The love stories between Valjean and Fantine and between Cosette and Marius are not believable. We are never shown a motivation for Valjean's attraction to her (except perhaps for her beauty) unless it's his guilt from putting her into dire circumstances. The only possible reason for Cosette's falling in love with the bland lifeless boy is that he's the first male she met. Neither of these relationships are convincing although it is amusing to see Marius begging for "just an hour" off from revolutionary fighting to visit his lover.
The biggest problem with the film is its lack of grandeur. Epic scale films call for epic scale scenes and emotional responses from the audience on the same level. The scenes here are small, mostly involving only a few people. With the climate of post-revolutionary Paris, the possibilities for magnificent vignettes on a large scale are endless, but we get only a few minutes. The film lacks energy and power. It never reaches the heights it might have.
It's difficult to care about most of the characters. With the exception of Valjean and Fantine, the film is filled with cold one-dimensional people. Perhaps that's why Cosette and Marius' affair is so difficult to grasp. Neither of them are humans, only cardboard cut-outs. When the audience isn't involved with the players, there is no epic. Swedish director Bille August ("The Best Intentions", "Pelle The Conqueror") gives us very little to work with.
The immense popularity of the musical that has been selling out for years almost guarantees this film's success no matter it's quality. In the future producers would do well to look for 50-page short stories to adapt to film or plan for five-hour films. The "Reader's Digest" versions don't do justice to the originals and even worse, they don't work.
(Michael Redman has written this column for over 23 years right here in beautiful southern Indiana and is grateful for the new green. Email fan letters and evil comments to redman@bvoice.com.)
[This appeared in the 5/7/98 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bvoice.com]
-- mailto:redman@bvoice.com This week's film review at http://www.bvoice.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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