“Les Miserables” – Film Review (*Spoilers*)

Let’s set the scene. I haven’t seen the stage show of Les Mis, but I’ve seen the 10th Anniversary and 25th Anniversary concert DVDs, as well as loads of videos on YouTube, which doesn’t equate to actually seeing it, but I had a pretty good idea of the plot and knew all of the songs very well before I went to see the film. 

I heard a lot of criticism – the amount was dwarfed by the amount of good reviews, but there was still a fair bit – of the film before I went to see it, and it got me nervous. I’d been excited for the film since it was announced at the end of the 25th Anniversary concert, and I followed all the news eagerly – casting and filming and everything about it – and I really, really hoped they’d get it right. When I saw that people weren’t impressed, my heart sank. 

The main issue people seemed to have was with the singing – so many were saying “It’ll never compare to Colm Wilkinson/Alfie Boe/Lea Salonga”, and I think they were forgetting that we are talking about the same show, but two very different mediums. In musical theatre, the voice is key, and people pay a lot of money to hear incredible voices and see incredible acting. With the film, that isn’t what I was expecting. I wanted astronomically good acting, and singing that was true to the emotions of the film, rather than – as Anne Hathaway put it, “going for the pretty version”. If I was to go and see “Les Miserables” and someone sang “Bring Him Home” in the way Hugh Jackman sang it, I’d possibly be disappointed – but if I went to see it in a film and it was sang the way Alfie Boe sang it in the Anniversary concert, I’d be equally disappointed, because in the concert it was powerful and beautiful but wouldn’t have suited the film (more on the singing later). 

Casting… would have been perfect, were it not for Russell Crowe. I mean, I don’t doubt that the man is a good actor, or at least he has his moments, but he was dire as Javert. He was the only thing letting that film down in my opinion, and I think there were plenty of other people who could have done a better job. His acting was… meh, at best, and his singing was completely devoid of any emotion. People are meant to be left crying after Javert’s Suicide, and yet behind us in the cinema a couple of people giggled when his body hit the weir with quite a thwack, because he just sang it… blandly. No emotion in it at all. The same went for “Stars”, that’s one of my favourite songs in Les Mis, and I was left completely underwhelmed by it. His singing voice isn’t fantastic, but the least he could have done was to put emotion in there – Javert is a cold, calculating character, but he isn’t a robot; he has emotions, and yet his character just had no effect on me the whole way through. 

Anne Hathaway stole the show as Fantine, she really did. She made such an impact in the short screen time she had, “I Dreamed A Dream” left me in tears because it was so beautiful. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t incredibly sang, but by god, it was emotional and powerful, and there was something so beautiful in the emotions she conveyed that I’d be willing to say it is the best rendition I’ve ever heard. I set a lot of store by emotions in songs, and she just blew me away. 

Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne as Cosette and Marius were great – I’ve never been huge fans of the two characters, because they both seem a little drippy – Eponine is my favourite female character, and Enjolras is so much more kick-ass than Marius, so they tend to be my favourite characters – but they were portrayed very well. Amanda Seyfried has one hell of a warble, which suited Cosette perfectly, and although at first I was a little iffy about Eddie Redmayne’s singing, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” had me in tears again (I cried a lot during the film, get used to it now!), because he conveyed that emotion perfectly. 

Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen… where to begin? They were incredible. Hilarious as usual, perfect as the Thenardiers, assisted by excellent costuming. “Master Of The House” was brilliant, and Baron-Cohen’s lines – calling Cosette, “Courgette” was a particular favourite of mine, and delivered perfectly – served as the comic relief we needed in the midst of all the darkness of the film (it’s a pretty grisly film in places, Gavroche’s death was quite heart-breaking!). 

Samantha Barks as Eponine… wow, wow, wow! I am so glad Taylor Swift didn’t get the part, because it wouldn’t have worked. She wouldn’t have been able to carry it off, I’m sure of it. Considering she was unknown outside of Britain – and even in Britain, she was only really known by those who followed her progress after “I’d Do Anything” (her rendition of Defying Gravity on that show made me a fan!) – she lived up to the pressure heaped on her, and then some! “On My Own” was incredible, as expected, and her acting skills really came into play during “A Heart Full Of Love” and “A Little Fall Of Rain” (the latter had me in floods of tears, that song affected me more than most of them!). 

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean was fantastic, a great choice. Singing was fantastic in that the emotion was always there, even if people have been complaining about his less-than-perfect vocals, but again I think that’s due to their unrealistic expectations more than anything else. 

Going back to the singing, I think that having them sing it live rather than dubbing in pretty versions over the acting was a genius move, and I’m so glad they did it. People have complained that it detracted from the film, but it absolutely didn’t, in my opinion. It added to it, bringing a level of emotion that you wouldn’t have gotten with dubbed voices. Again, the only singing I had an issue with was Russell Crowe’s, because it sounded like it had been dubbed and was completely devoid of emotion! 

Everything about the film was just utterly incredible, I don’t think it left anyone with dry eyes in the cinema – I shed many tears, and even my other half – who I don’t think I’ve ever seen cry at film or television before – was reduced to tears; I think either by “Bring Him Home” or “Empty Chairs At Empty Tables”, or the end (or all three, I know they all got me big time!). An astounding, incredible piece of cinema and I would recommend it to anyone, whether you’re a fan of the musical or not. 

The village-mouse and the city-mouse.

Sorry for that crude re-hashing of the title of an old story – I think it’s one of Aesop’s Fables – “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”. My attempts at writing witty titles are, so far, failing miserably.

I’ve lived in a really small village in Wales since I was two and a half, and before that, I lived in a town in the West Midlands (for those of you who are geographically challenged, like me, it’s somewhere near Birmingham). Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my village (well, apart from most of the people who live here), but sometimes you just can’t beat a city. So, this is

MADDY’S CITY VS VILLAGE LIST

Basically, I’m going to write down what I like best about cities, vs what I like best about villages. Just because I can.

First of all, I’d better say what cities I’m basing my opinion on. The cities I’ve been to are –

• London
• Birmingham
• Cardiff
• New York
• Madrid
• Manchester
• Bangor (a very small city!)

And my experience of villages is basically that I have lived in one for as long as I can remember.

 

WHAT MADDY LIKES ABOUT CITIES

• It seems that very few people know you. If you’ve ever lived in a village, you’ll know why this is a very good thing.
• There are so many shops to go to! Including Primark! *sigh*. The nearest Primark to me is two and a half hours away in a car! It’s against my human shopping rights 😦
• Starbucks. I am determined that my village needs a Starbucks; it has been so long since I’ve had my old favourite (caramel frappuccino with extra cream and chocolate sauce).
• The hustle and bustle. There always seems to be something happening, compared to villages which are usually boring. The good news never gets spread because apparently that’s not worth knowing about, but the minute something bad happens to you, you can guarantee you’ll be the hot topic of conversation at the post office *cough*, school gates and everywhere else, and suddenly everyone will have an opinion on you (and it’s rarely a kind opinion).
• All the different things you can do – cities usually have big cinemas and big theatres where tours of musicals perform. Our nearest cinema that has more than one screen and actually shows new films is almost two hours away, and the same for our nearest big (as in has touring musicals) theatre.
• You can walk to places! The nearest school or college is a walk or a very short bus ride away, you can get to the shops easily etc. Our nearest supermarket is five miles away and tiny, the nearest secondary school is five miles away, the primary school is in the village but the nearest sixth form/college is my college, half an hour away! Villages are isolated.

Now, here is my list of village advantages. Note that I live in a village/near a town which are both fairly popular in the holidays with tourists from the Midlands because we live on the coast, and the town is apparently the closest town geographically to the West Midlands, which is why we all end up calling it Birmingham-On-Sea in the summer months.

• In the summer, you might be able to get a job on a holiday site or in a restaurant because of how many people are there.
• In the winter, the roads are pretty empty.
• It’s quiet (in the winter).
• We sometimes get sunshine. (but not in the winter).
• The countryside is beautiful, no matter what time of year you see it 🙂 this is probably my favourite point about living on the Welsh coast is that we get the best of both worlds – on one side, we have the beach and the sea, about a mile from my house. On the other, a few miles from my house, is hills and lots of pretty scenery.

It’s probably easier for me to explain the drawbacks of living in a village.

• In the summer, trying to get anywhere is a nightmare. Most people who live in places like ours end up becoming hermits for six weeks during the school holidays, because holidaymakers see fit to wander lazily along 60mph roads at 20, tootling along to admire the scenery. They forget that not everyone is on holiday, and a common insult to them is “They forgot to pack their brains in their suitcase”.
• The tourists in general are a nightmare. They’re loud, they’re boisterous, they’re dirty, they think they’re the only ones who matter (seriously, they think that because we live in a holiday destination, and they’ve come on holiday here, we all automatically work for the “Great God Of Holidays”, and our days revolve around doing things for them, giving up our roads for them, putting up with them walking three abreast down a path that’s made for one. They’re rude and don’t seem to give a toss about the fact that other people have lives to be getting on with, they’re on holiday so stuff everyone else.
• In the winter, it really is far too quiet. I mean, I know I complain about the noise in the summer, but the winter is ridiculous, it’s horrible to see the whole village and the town looking deserted, all the smaller shops close leaving only a few open.
• Village life is absolutely horrible. As I said earlier, everyone wants to know everything bad about you, and the second you need help they all mysteriously disappear and make themselves unavailable. People seem to think that village life is all about community spirit and people sticking together, but the most community spirit we’ve seen in the 15 years we’ve lived in the village is from our lovely next door neighbour, who gets my siblings involved in tending to plants and brings around fruit and veg to say thank you – and she moved from near Birmingham a few years ago!
• The schools here are crazily Christian, and don’t even think about not having a religion. In primary school we had to pray twice a day on most days, three if there’s assembly – once in assembly, once before lunch and once before going home. Everything seems to have a Christian basis – and you can’t even choose to NOT go to a Christian school! They’re not church of Wales schools, they’re just regular state primary schools with a massive Christian bias. By the end of it I used to not pray, I didn’t care if I got dirty looks.
• Public transport is stupid. At the best of times, there’s a bus to my college every hour. There’s a bus to the nearest town, which is where I need to get to to CATCH said bus to college, once every couple of hours – and it’s usually late so you miss the connection. In the summer, the trains are always crowded with people who are travelling alone, but see fit to ignore the luggage racks and decide they want a table to themselves, putting all their stuff on them so that when you’re coming home from school (the school I went to was a half an hour train ride away) you have to stand around for ages and crowd up the aisles and get told off for it!
• The weather. I know the Welsh weather is legend for being awful, but it’s not that bad. We do have some really terrible days, but when we get sunshine, it is gorgeous – already this year we’ve had a really lovely, warm day. Plus, when we do get the beautiful weather, we’re only a quick walk away from the beach and the sea!

 

There are probably a lot more I can add, but they escape me now. I hope you have enjoyed my quick foray into the world of village vs city, and if you’re ever thinking of moving to my village, if you value your privacy and don’t want to be living near a bunch of people desperate to ruin your life so they’ve got more to talk about at the school gates and in the post office *cough*, for goodness’ sake, DON’T!