This film is something special. It really is something. It’s
incredibly difficult to take a musical containing fewer than ten spoken words
and mold a coherent and involving narrative presence. Filming musicals is a
long tradition, and few have done it as well as is done here. The film runs a
hefty 152 minutes, but I found myself enthralled in every minute and fully able
to understand the events within the story, an issue I have always found with
the musical. Out of those 152 minutes, probably 151.5 include some sort of
music, be it interlude or song, posing an immense challenge of telling this
monstrous story understandably. Director Tom Hooper completely succeeds,
however.
Opinions vary on the film, making it probably the most
divisive film that will be nominated for Best Picture this year. Hooper’s
direction has been equally lauded and maligned, as has Danny Cohen’s
cinematography. Personally, I thought both succeeded quite well. Cohen’s
cinematography is gorgeous. His work on The King’s Speech was underrated in its
inventiveness. Placing his subjects at the edges of his frames had pretty much
never been so fully utilized as there. Here, though, he takes the exact
opposite approach, centering completely on his subjects. In fact, he zeros in
on them, completely shutting out the massive narrative scope to create touching
scenes (many of which are single-takes and 2-3 minutes long). He also uses
unusual filming angles askew from the norm occasionally, but they always worked
for me (the beauty of the art direction and stark contrasts in color palettes
can’t hurt, either). Hooper’s direction is likewise great. He masterfully
crafts this complicated, overlapping narrative into a brilliantly
understandable and cohesive story.
The adaptation is nothing special. There really is more work
for the director in adaptation than on the screenwriter. With so many songs and
so few words, the staging is far more important, and Hooper stages wonderfully.
Some things I have read have maligned his staging of various scenes, especially
Marius’ Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. Frankly I had always imagined it being
sung at tables, but Hooper doesn’t stage it like that, instead opting for a
less heartstring-pulling locale and filmmaking technique, a much-appreciated
decision given the highly emotional state of the song and musical. The thing
that makes the emotion of the musical translate so well is Hooper’s decision to
record everything live. Musicals have always previously been recorded 2-3
months prior to filming, forcing actors to make their acting decisions
oftentimes before they meet many of their costars and definitely before they every
get on set. Recording live allowed actual acting.
The performances are what really make the film work. Hugh
Jackman gives by far his career-best work, an honor which was previously held
by his work in The Prestige. He endows Jean Valjean with such true emotion,
such passionate hatred, honest appreciation, and deep love. Not only that but
his renditions of Valjean’s Soliloquy, Suddenly (a new song some found
lackluster, but that I quite enjoyed), and Bring Him Home (especially this one)
are absolute brilliance.
Russell Crowe plays Javert and gives his best performance in
a several years, but he hasn’t really done anything in recent years. Honestly,
he’s the weak link here, mostly because his voice just isn’t nearly as good or
as fine-tuned as everybody else’s. His less-fluid, more regimented syllabic
word break-up is appropriate for his character, but his untrained voice is
simply unable to evoke the kind of emotion required of his part. I wasn’t actually
averse to his performance as some were, but I did feel a better voice could
have pulled off a heart-breaking suicide scene, whereas Crowe’s simply is just
there.
Anne Hathaway, of course, is magnificent as Fantine as has
been said in so many ways by so many others. Her show-stopping rendition of I
Dreamed a Dream is astonishing and will almost undoubtedly win her the
Supporting Actress Oscar.
The best supporting male performance, surprisingly, is given
by Eddie Redmayne as Marius. The part is emotional to begin with, and Redmayne,
his absolutely gorgeous voice included, makes the absolute most of every
moment. His has pretty much earned a spot on my personal Oscar ballot, though
he will almost undoubtedly be left off of the final Oscar ballot.
Samantha Barks, the current West End Éponine, reprises her
role her and gives a great performance that trumpets her arrival on the film
stage. Her work has earned her a spot on my personal Oscar ballot for the time
being.
As the Thénardiers, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham
Carter try their very best to steal the movie, and they nearly succeed, or
rather, Cohen nearly succeeds. He steals every scene from Carter and almost
steals the whole film, but not quite. He is absolutely priceless.
Amanda Seyfried is fine as Cosette, but never really becomes
anything all that special. It’s not really that much of a character to begin
with, but I also found Seyfried’s voice to be far too immature. I know she’s
supposed to be young, but she sounded like she was ten, not seventeen or
eighteen.
Even the smaller roles are well-filled. Aaron Tveit, best
known to Broadway followers for his roles in Next to Normal and Catch Me If You
Can, he fulfills his role as Enjolras well. Isabelle Allen is good as the young
Cosette and Daniel Huttlestone gives a great performance as Gavroche.
As I hope is clear, I loved every minute of this movie. It is
storytelling at its most difficult and finest as a result. ★★★★★ out of ★★★★★.
I pretty much agree as I loved the film, and honestly it is my second favorite film of the year. I can name flaws easily, but not a single one took away the emotional affect the film had on me.
ReplyDeletePretty much my thoughts on it too. I agreed with your short thoughts about it on your review of Jackman. I actually liked Cohen's camera work almost the whole time, but did feel like his intermittent wobbliness was somewhat bothersome. I also feel like Hooper's direction, while maybe not fantastic, was great at forming this sometimes frankly difficult-to-follow plotline, which allows me to forgive such oddities as the staging of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (it was also saved by Redmayne's amazing rendition.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete