Les Misérables (or Les Miz, as all the cool kids call it) has been one of my all-time favorite musicals, and my absolute favorite stage musical. From my first time at the West End Theater to my most recent viewing in DC, Les Miz stays just as relevant today as it did when Victor Hugo penned the original novel on which this musical is based. Known for it’s amazing set design, breathtaking musical numbers and gorgeous songs that are like earworms to the soul (okay, you try to get “At The End Of The Day” out of your head once it’s in there. Thought so.) Les Miz is pretty much tailor made for a sweeping, epic movie musical. Add on megawatt stars Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and fannish heartthrob Eddie Redmayne (My Week With Marilyn), and it’s understandable that everyone — myself included — has been chomping at the bit to grab a seat at the local multiplex and get their French Revolution on.
But then. When director Tom Hooper (The King’s English) should pull away to show the awesomeness of the production, he instead focuses in on faces. Thanks, but as beautiful as Hugh Jackman is, I’d rather not count the hairs in his beard, thanks everso. It’s not that the entire film is shot at an eye-level close up, but it sure feels like it. Strangely, this served to not draw me closer to the characters, but to pull me out of the story altogether. It reminded me that I was indeed watching a film, rather than letting me become one with the people and places.
But let’s get into the pluses of the film, ‘cause there’s a lot of ‘em. First off, art direction, props and set design are off the hook y’all. This Les Miz is richly detailed, historically accurate — yes, there really was a huge plaster elephant in the middle of Paris — and paints a vivid picture of Parisian life at the time. All this painstaking detail is one of the reasons why I wish Hooper would have pulled away from his cast a bit more often. Because when he does go wide? It’s breathtaking.
