Given all the liberties Hollywood has taken with the classics lately - spicing up ``The Man in the Iron Mask'' with scatological jokes; a ``Romeo & Juliet'' boasting a disco-belting drag queen; Indian attacks and a happy ending for Hester Prynne in the Demi Moore version of ``The Scarlet Letter,'' etc. - it comes as a surprise to see director Bille August offering up a perfectly straightforward and decidedly nonmusical version of ``Les Miserables.'' But while there's something to be said for reverence, nobody said it had to come at the expense of passion or imagination, and, sadly, ``Miserables'' comes up short in both those departments.
Aside from being shot on somewhat stagy-looking sets and with sometimes inappropriate lighting levels, there's nothing glaringly wrong with August's film, and several of the performances are terrific. Why then does it seem about as engaging as a well-written book report?
It's tempting to blame August himself. Since his Oscar-winning ``Pelle the Conqueror,'' August has floundered, directing the dismal ``House of the Spirits,'' which somehow managed to squander the talents of Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons and Winona Ryder, and ``Smilla's Sense of Snow,'' a silly attempt to film the complex best-seller. By the low standards set by that pair, ``Les Miserables'' looks almost like a comeback.
In paring down Hugo's epic melodrama to its basics, screenwriter Rafael Yglesias has chosen to focus on the novel's mid-section, beginning with the parole of Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson) after two decades of serving hard time in the quarries for stealing bread. In later years Valjean will end up as mayor of the village of Vigau, where he oversees a tile factory.
One of his workers is Fantine (Uma Thurman), a young beauty struggling to make ends meet. When it's revealed that the unwed Fantine has had a baby, Valjean's underlings fire her, sending her on a downward spiral into prostitution and poverty.
Around the same time, Vigau gets a new prefect of police, Javert (Geoffrey Rush), formerly a guard in the prison where Valjean was incarcerated. Javert eventually recognizes Valjean and does everything he can to ruin the lives of Valjean, Fantine - who Valjean tries to help - and later Fantine's child Cosette (Claire Danes), whom Valjean adopts.
``Reform is a discredited fantasy,'' Javert tells his partners when they try to suggest Valjean's nature has changed over the years. The always subtle and detail-oriented Neeson reads Valjean as a brute trying to reclaim his humanity, while Rush plays up Javert's cold detachment from the same world Valjean is reaching out to. Both actors are outstanding.
Thurman strains to deglamorize herself, but even when she's coughing up blood at death's door she can't help looking seductive. Still, she's a sympathetic Fantine, and Danes, despite a sometimes wavering accent, sparkles as the noble, devoted Cosette.
If only the director had the same commitment to the material as his cast. Unfortunately, August's mind seems to have been elsewhere, which accounts for why ``Les Miserables'' often has a perfunctory feel.
James Sanford
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