Chatterbox: Pudding's Place

Rambly Thoughts About the Les Mis Movie Which I Have Finally Seen!

Generally? I think it's laughably bad. And I've never literally facepalmed in a movie before. Basically I spent the entire time going "what? what? ...what?!" and helplessly giggling. And at one point I was so surprised and enraged that I literally shouted "YOU DID NOT!!!!" D:< at the screen. 

Let's see... 

ACTING! 

I thought the singing was almost universally terrible, mostly because nobody was actually singing for... some reason. I guess because they were singing live on set? And for some reason that meant they weren't allowed to actually sing, and instead had to scream through their nasal cavities? 

Hugh Jackman was particularly bad, because he was also trying to sing above his comfort range and it generally was like fingernails on a chalkboard whenever he tried to hit one of Valjean's big notes. He also literally whispered "I'm Jean Valjean" at the end of Who Am I? and effectively killed one of the most universal crowning moments of awesome in the show. He also apparently forgot how to act for the duration of the movie. Sigh.

I adored Russell Crowe's acting. He was directed really badly, such that Javert was COMPLETELY OUT OF CHARACTER (more on that later), but the poor guy did his absolute best to carry it off and *almost* managed it.He was clearly trying his best but . . . gold star for effort.

Amanda Seyfried fills me with rage.

Eddie Redmayne is not Michael Ball. He did his best, but he was doomed from the start, really. Also: when he sings, his entire body vibrates. It's hilarious.

Anne Hathaway's performance ruined any respect I might have had for her. Because she did nothing but demonstrate and mumble and contort her face around to squeeze out her fake tears whenever she was onscreen. She (badly) faked an anxiety attack during I Dreamed a Dream and I almost broke a rib from laughing. And she channeled Catherine Zeta Jones and jerked her head around between every word and it made me want to kill things. Also, she can't belt, and she tried, and it almost made my ears bleed. Ow.

Master of the House was horrid, mainly because they slowed it down and exaggerated the musical's tongue-in-cheek humor to the point that it took a lead pipe to my suspension of disbelief. This is just one of many instances of Tom Hooper thinking his audience must be too stupid to understand anything subtler than a cricket bat to the face. More on that later, too. The same thing happened whenever the Thenardiers showed up. Also? Helena Bonham Carter is way too breathy and pretty to be a believable Madam Thenardier, but I forgive her because she, like Russell Crowe, did the best she could with the terrible direction. And Sacha Baron Cohen couldn't decide if he was French or Irish. What.

All of the *other* crowd songs sound fabulous. Mostly because the extras were actually singing. Also? You know what a fun game is? Count the extras who have been in stage productions of Les Mis! *waves* Hi, Frances Ruffelle! Hi, Hadley Fraser! Hi, Killian Donnelly! ...sigh.

Speaking of which, while it's always great to see Colm Wilkinson in anything because he's awesome, it's really cruel to make him try to sing that low. And it just sounds like it hurt a lot. That's not enjoyable, you know. 

Isabelle Allen is adorable. ^_^

I know Aaron Tveit can both act and sing, because I've seen videos of him in Next to Normal and Catch Me If You Can. However, he's either super camera shy or he just didn't care. Either way, his Enjolras is just... dull and boring. Possibly he was trying to compliment the rest of the dull, boring, and oddly personality-less students?

Last of all, Samantha Barks, who was actually the person I wanted to be cast as Eponine. She's literally the only person in the entire movie who actually sings outside of the crowd songs. It's particularly obvious when she starts belting in On My Own. And the real kicker? She was holding back too. I know, because her performance in the same role during the 25th anniversary concert was approximately twelve times more powerful than in the movie. 

The moral of this part of the rant? Live singing on a movie set is clearly not a good idea.

STORY!

...I don't know what Tom Hooper thought he was doing. Or any of the rest of the creative team, with exception of designers. I really don't. But they rearranged the songs for no reason and pointlessly changed lyrics in just about every song and added in dialogue to explain, in explicit terms, EXACTLY WHAT WE JUST LEARNT IN THE SONGS, and put in gratuitous references to the book which I would have appreciated had they also made any effort whatsoever to make them fit into the flow of the musical's narrative—particularly glaring is the RANDOM CHASE SCENE wherein Valjean and Cosette scale the wall to the convent. Yes, it's lifted straight from the books, but that doesn't mean it isn't a Big Lipped Alligator Moment within the context of the musical. The new song sounds ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the rest of the show, and is creepily romantic to boot. Just... no. There's also a lot of really random smash cuts wherein we hop from location to location with no indication of why we're doing it.

Also, all those additions and changes and rearrangements I mentioned? They upset the pacing. See, the stage musical is absurdly long—averaging three hours plus an intermission—but the pacing is so spot on that it doesn't feel like that long at all. Every transition is perfectly timed, every song is exactly as long as it needs to be, every scene comes when it needs to and ends when its point has been made. It's one of the most cohesive musicals I've ever seen. The movie, on the other hand, ruins its transitions with a ton of whiplash-y, second-long smash cuts, and added dialogue that is redundant and unnecessary and BORING, and it puts things out of order and drags the songs out (Lovely Ladies and Master of the House are particularly egregarious examples of how they slowed down almost all the songs for the sake of, er, no reason at all); almost every song has been slowed down noticeably and the result is that they had to cut out TONS of lyrics and sung dialogue in order to not have a four hour long movie. Seriously, they cut out almost an hour's worth of original material and replaced it with sloppily-written new material that says half of what the original stuff did. They also randomly change things like having Valjean not show off his prisoner tats (i.e. the giant "24601" stamped on his chest) at the trial (which must also be the first time in the history of Hollywood that a movie passed on an excuse to have Hugh Jackman take his shirt off), rendering the entire scene nonsensical because it means there is still no proof that the mayor is really Valjean! They'd still just think he was having a nervous breakdown or something! They even pointed it out with unnecessary added dialogue!!

The end result is that the movie drags interminably in the second act and makes about 60% as much sense as the musical does. And then Tom Hooper shot himself in the foot by COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT of the finale. More on that later.

CHARACTER!

The changes made to the musical also had the effect of slapping almost everyone out of character. I'm going to do this in a list:

• In the musical, when Valjean breaks up the fight in At the End of the Day and leaves the foreman to decide Fantine's fate, it's obvious that he believes the foreman will give both sides of the story consideration and allow Fantine to keep her job, because he has no idea about the personal problems the foreman has with Fantine. In the movie, however, he charges in to save the day. Then Javert randomly shows up, and he and Valjean make excessive eyes at each other, and Valjean kind of wanders away while mumbling "take care of this" to the foreman. It makes him look selfish and completely dispassionate. The musical makes it very clear that Valjean cares very deeply about the factory workers, and expects that they will be treated well and fairly. The movie... muddies things by making it look like Valjean puts his fear of Javert over the needs of his employees.

• The runaway cart happens IMMEDIATELY AFTER VALJEAN LEAVES THE FACTORY. Now, I might be able to forgive this—except that it means that, instead of expressing his suspicions about the mayor in private, Javert tells them to the whole street. No matter how much Javert suspected the mayor of being Valjean, he would not bring it up in public, not even in the round-about implied way he does in the movie. He ALSO wouldn't write off to his superiors about how this well-liked mayor is secretly an escaped convict. He'd keep it to himself and maybe keep a closer-than-usual eye on the mayor until such time as concrete proof happened to come up. Because obsessive respect for authority is HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER. As far as he's concerned, the establishment is fundamentally incapable of doing wrong. He wouldn't do anything to encourage people to think anything less of an autority figure unless he had incontrovertible proof that something was wrong! Lifting a cart off of someone does not count as incontrovertible proof that you are an escaped con!!

• The second part of the runaway cart scene (because, yes, they literally chopped it in half and added a bunch of dialogue to the second half and put the second half where it's SUPPOSED to be, after Fantine is taken to the hospital) in the movie revolves around Javert being like "I misjudged you, punish me!" and Valjean being like "lol no." I guess it's supposed to be foreshadowing for how Valjean accidentally drives Javert to suicide by showing him mercy and basically breaking his brain?  In the musical, Valjean's question of "how can you know that I am not this man?" comes off as desperation for the sake of the innocent man they're about to convict.  See previous point about Javert keeping his suspicions to himself for this very reason. If he accused someone and realized he had done so wrongly, he really would expect to be dishonorably dismissed from service—which is why he wouldn't accuse anyone of anything unless he was absolutely 100% certain. In his eyes, a criminal is 100% evil, all the time, and is incapable of changing at all, ever. His world view is entirely black and white: criminals are ALL complete monsters, and people who aren't criminals are INCAPABLE OF DOING WRONG. And once you BECOME a criminal, YOU WILL NEVER STOP BEING A COMPLETE MONSTER. That's why he's completely unmoved by Fantine's pleading!! Not because he's a jerk! But because he believes her to be incapable of doing anything good!! STOP MUTILATING JAVERT'S CHARACTER, TOM HOOPER!!!

• They changed The Confrontation so that Javert and Valjean flynn for a while before Valjean escapes out a window. And Fantine dies immediately after she finishes singing. Um, what? In the musical, Javert tries to arrest Valjean WHILE FANTINE IS STILL IN HER DEATH THROES. Valjean knocks him down and is basically like, "WAIT." And Javert does until Fantine dies, and then they start arguing, but not fighting because Valjean so physically intimidating. And then Javert tries to arrest him again, refusing to listen about Cosette, so Valjean knocks him out and THEN runs away. The movie version fails so hard on so many levels. First, Javert creepily stands behind Valjean and watches until Fantine is dead. It's supposed to be shocking when the camera cuts to his face, but because they failed at keeping him out of the shot during Fantine's Death, it falls flat and takes another huge chunk out of Javert's implacability. Second, he immediately pulls a sword on Valjean, instead of simply trying to cuff him. Javert's first impulse IS NOT VIOLENCE!! His first impulse is to perform an arrest with as little fuss as possible! He's not a sadist! He's just IMPLACABLE AND STUBBORN!! And third, the anticlimactic escape makes Valjean look like a coward. See, in the musical, Valjean's established as a nonviolent man—he's become like the Bishop, basically—so his knocking Javert out (and threatening to kill him if necessary) shows how far he's willing to go to protect an innocent little girl. Simply jumping out a window doesn't have the same effect at all, it just makes him look like he didn't want to go back to the chain gang! Especially because movie!Javert is demonstrably sympathetic to kids, and would conceivably have listened to Valjean were he told about Cosette's situation! 

• That thing in the carriage, the new song that Valjean sings to young Cosette? Yeah, it comes off like a romantic love song. I shouldn't have to explain why this is wrong on all levels.

• Stars apparently comes before the act break now! Super! For some reason, Javert sings it while getting his Batman on on the roof of a tall building overlooking Gotham—er, Mont-Sur-Meir. I am not even kidding. It is also supposed to be foreshadowing for Javert's Suicide, because he walks along the edge of the building the EXACT SAME WAY he does on the bridge before he jumps—you see what I mean about bad directing?—anyway, it doesn't work, because Javert wouldn't DO stuff like this. He has no sense of the dramatic! He knows exactly where he's going at all times! He doesn't wander around on random rooftops wondering what he should do now! Stars is supposed to be him praying for God to help him find Valjean! That doesn't come through at all because he's pretending to be Batman! It's silly!! Also, this is the biggest offender on the whole orchestra-swells-singers-fade thing; on the final note, Russell Crowe's voice just sort of tails off, and the orchestra swells and the camera swoops up and away and it's supposed to be dramatic but it just falls flat because RUSSELL CROWE CANNOT SING.

• None of the students have distinct personalities. Not even Grantaire, who's the most colorful of them all. I literally couldn't have told who was who if I didn't know what character sang what lines. And I still had trouble keeping them separate. This is a problem.

• On My Own is before the barricade now, making it a whiny teenager song instead of Eponine's decision to return to the barricade in the hope that she might be able to save Marius's life or, failing that, at least die with him. What. Samantha Barks does her best, and she almost manages to save it, but the fact remains that without Marius's life being in danger to spur Eponine to desperate action, On My Own is nothing but an angstfest about how Marius doesn't love her.

• One Day More really, really, REALLY doesn't work onscreen. Because it's mostly just a mass of really quick cuts. They show Eponine binding for her stint as a revolutionary while singing her parts (possibly as punishment for DARING to belt properly in On My Own?), and Marius flipping out and trying to break down the door on Rue Plumet, and the Thenardiers trying to be funny and failing while the students collect arms and ammunition, and Javert wandering around in civvies and generally just being awesome, and Valjean and Cosette in the carriage as they run away. And then it smash cuts to Lamark's funeral so fast I almost broke my neck from the whiplash. STOP THAT.

• They killed Eponine early—as in, before she delivers Marius's letter to Valjean. Because Tom Hooper apparently missed the following points: (1) Eponine loves Marius enough to put his happiness before her own, so she's willing to deliver his love letter to the object of his affections and then return to the barricade for the reasons discussed in On My Own. (2) Marius gave Eponine his letter to Cosette in hopes of getting her away from the barricade because he didn't want her to die because she's his best friend! Making her die before he can do that makes him seem like he doesn't care about her at all! (3) Gavroche is cute, but he is not the main point of the show. Stop showering him with undue attention. Seriously.

• After the slaughter at the barricade we have the  moment—this is the one that I mentioned shouting "YOU DID NOT!!!" about. In the musical, Javert is on the fast train to a nervous breakdown, and the entire day has been spent fighting at the barricade and everyone is dead. It's dark, he has a torch, and he's searching for Valjean's body among the dead revolutionaries as the bodies are being carted away. In the movie, he calmly walks down a line of students (during the day) and gets to Gavroche. And he kneels down and takes off his metal and puts it on Gavroche's body. It was at that point that I had an aneurysm. Remember how I talked about how Javert has no empathy whatsoever for anyone whom he considers to be a criminal? Yeah, that would INCLUDE Gavroche, who was a nasty little street rat who spent his whole life committing petty theft. No, Javert doesn't care that the alternative was starvation. GAVROCHE MEANS NOTHING TO HIM. THE REVOLUTIONARIES BROKE THE LAW AND THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT HUMAN TO HIM! NOR ARE THEY WORTH ANY RESPECT, EVEN POSTHUMOUSLY!! JUST BECAUSE GAVROCHE IS UNUSUALLY YOUNG FOR A VICTIM OF THE BARRICADE DOES NOT MEAN THAT JAVERT WOULD SHOW HIM ANY KIND OF HONOR OR RESPECT WHATSOEVER!! JAVERT WOULD NOT DO THIS!!! 

I get that it's supposed to illustrate the extreme mental duress Javert is under as a result of Valjean's (to his mind) impossible mercy, and to demonstrate that Javert's becoming more empathetic and thus to foreshadow that he's going to let Valjean save Marius—BUT EVEN THAT DOESN'T WORK!

*deep breaths*

I don't appreciate my favorite character being butchered.

SYMBOLISM!

Yes, this deserves its own section, because the whole movie was basically Tom Hooper going, LOOK, everybody! Look at my intelligent symbolism! AREN'T I CLEVER?!

Have another list:

• In the first scene, Javert orders Valjean to "retrieve the flag" (on the broken mast of the ship the chain gang just dragged in). He goes to it, picks up one end, and carries it on his shoulder. It's a VERY obvious analogy to Jesus carrying the cross. It was like being slapped in the face with the cricket bat of subtlety and the sledgehammer of symbology all at the same time.

• After Valjean's Soliloquy, he rips up his parole papers and tosses them into the air. He does that in the musical, too. But the movie has to go above and beyond: the pieces are swept up by a draft of air, the camera pans after them, and we get this shot of thick clouds over head, with a break in them through which the "sunlight" (read: heavy-handed light of God) shines through. Guess where the pieces end up. Go on, guess. It was at this point that I realized how hilariously awful this movie was going to be.

• There's a bit where the poor are singing their Look Down mantra in an alley with a locked gate (read: prison door) at one end. Some soldier dude rides by on a horse and goes through the gate, which closes behind him again. And the poor rush the gate and do the whole "reaching through the bars" thing. For no reason. SUBTLETY.

• Javert gets his very own Symbolic Griffin during Stars. What, exactly, it was supposed to symbolize, I don't know, but it was so blatantly supposed to mean something that I can't really leave it out. It got almost as much screen time as Javert did in that scene! Also, gratuitous Batman references. I mentioned those already.

• Gavroche squats a la Peter Pan in the window of a carriage during his bit in Look Down. Why he did not immediately get the gentleman's cane to the teeth when he did so, I don't know, but best I can figure, Tom Hooper was aiming for Spunky Narrator of Everyone's Misery and got nonsense instead. He also sits on the back of the same carriage for the rest of the number while the rest of the kids (from the book, yo) run after him and it just looks really stupid. This is just the beginning of the Gavroche favoritism. 

• There's a Symbolic Butterfly on the gate while Marius and Cosette are warbling A Heart Full of Love at each other. Amanda Seyfried squishes it when she grabs the bars in the throes of new passion. I lol'd.

• Every time Eponine sings, she gets RANDOM SYMBOLIC RAIN. Seriously—she opens her mouth for the first note of On My Own, and BAM! It's suddenly pouring rain. And then it does the exact same thing in A Little Fall of Rain, only with more fail, because it happens even more suddenly and looks very much as if it's only raining on Eponine, no one else. No, I don't get why Paris is apparently in Uberwald either.

• When Marius says that they're going to build their barricade on Lamark's tomb, he meant that metaphorically, not that they were actually going to hijack the funeral procession.

• On that note, they put Lamark's coffin in the place of honor at front of the barricade. SUBTLETY.

• Enjolras whacks the camera with a lead pipe. I don't know why, but I'm convinced it was meant to be symbolic somehow. 

• When Valjean sings Bring Him Home, there's a huge picture of an eye in the background. SUBTLETY.

• The students hide in the top of the ABC Cafe while the soldiers rush the barricade. The soldiers then shoot the floor out from under them, but Enjolras somehow survives while holding the big red flag, and then Grantaire comes charging out of nowhere and they stand dramatically together in front of the window, surrounded by a corona of golden light, while the soldiers shoot them down. Enjolras falls out of the window in the traditional death pose. It looks stupid, because there's nothing on the outside of the building to hold him up. *holds head*

• I believe I already mentioned that Tom Hooper missed the point of the finale? See, he sets the reprise of Do You Hear the People Sing (the one that goes "Do you hear the people sing?/Lost in the valley of the night/It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light/For the wretched of the earth/There is a flame that never dies/Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise!/They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord/They will walk behind the ploughshare/They will put away the sword/The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward!") ON TOP OF A GIANT BARRICADE.

Those of you who have read Night Watch, you know how Terry Pratchett parodies the barricade thing by having the revolutionaries push their barricades so far forward that pretty much the only thing outside of the barricade is the Cable Street Particulars and the Patrician's Palace? Yeah, that's what Tom Hooper did with the barricade in the finale. ONLY HE DID IT STRAIGHT, INSTEAD OF USING IT AS A CLEVER JOKE. 

*cries*