In Which I Ramble About Les Miserables Which is Neither a Band Nor a Concert

From the title you have surely gleaned that this post is not in fact about music in the seeing-it-live or listening-to-a-new-release-or-playlist sense of the word, but is instead about music in the being-in-a-musical-movie sense of the word. From my stats and how often I actually update this blog, I have gleaned that no one will particularly care. Thus let the rambling begin.

I will start by saying that I am one of those people. You know. The ones that sat in the front row to see Les Mis on tour and own the COMPLETE soundtrack (like with all the little in between songs where Jean Valjean whines about his life) and has said soundtrack memorized and listens to the entire thing for fun and belted out On My Own to myself/whoever was in a 5-mile vicinity BEFORE Lea Michelle sang it on Glee. I am the person they made this movie for and I am the person that all of the people in the movie theatre prayed to baby Jesus (whose birthday it was) that I would not sit beside them because it would mean they would be forced to endure 3 hours of me subconsciously singing along to the entire movie.

For the above mentioned reasons, as well as my longstanding infatuation with Hugh Jackman, I was obviously pumped beyond belief for this movie and I took full advantage of my status as a Jew on Christmas and headed to the movie theatre to see it opening day (where I ran into about half the synagogue, but that is beside the point). For the above mentioned reasons I also came out of the movie with a lot of thoughts in my head, and an immense desire to sit down with a pot of tea and have a nice long discussion with someone about my feelings. (towards the movie. mostly.) Anyways since no one talks about their feelings in real life anymore and instead everyone writes them down and then sends them out into the vast universe that is the internet, I decided to sort of word vomit my thoughts here in no particular order or organizational fashion. If something I wrote interests you and you would like to discuss it and you know me in real life, please reach out to me, I am always happy to monologue about musicals. I mean discuss.

Here goes:

1. Anne Hathaway - ok this is a big topic of controversy amongst many and what I will say is this: she was miscast and did her best. I mean god, the woman acted up a storm! Did you see those tears? Did you hear those trembles of pain and despair in her voice? Here's the thing though. I think we all were excited (or terrified) to see little Mia Thermopolis the Princess of Genovia be forced into prostitution and then die unconvincingly of tuberculosis. BUT she will always be Mia! In some way or another. I don't irrationally (or rationally) hate Anne Hathaway, but she was such a sad sorry victim that sometimes I just wanted to smack her across the face. JUST BECAUSE THE MOVIE IS LITERALLY CALLED THE MISERABLES DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN'T SHOW ANY OTHER EMOTION EVER. (This goes for you too Eponine chick, and kind of you too Marius. Jesus.)

2. Russell Crowe - Dear god why. I had hopes that you would shine through as this secretly amazing singer and you would be able to like even kneel in the presence of Hugh Jackman, but you didn't even show up to the duel. Like actually what. Javert is probably one of the greatest characters in all musical theatre history and can be one of the most terrifying and electrifying and he has some great songs. Unfortunately Russell Crowe did nothing but fill out his suit nicely. I am willing to rant more upon request... but you get the idea.

3. The adaptation itself- overall I would say it was a pretty valiant and relatively successful adaptation of the musical from stage to film. I could write a 10 page paper on why musicals should almost never be turned into movies, especially ones so tied to their stage identity (I mean really is it even really Les Mis without the rotating platform?), but that would be boring and would not stop people from trying. Tom Hooper clearly worked incredibly hard to stay as faithful as possible to the musical without just filming a broadway show and slapping it up on the big screen. There were no major cuts or changes that were incredibly noticeable (others may disagree) (ok but actually why did you cut the beginning of "A Little Fall of Rain" it might be the best part of the show), and there was definitely an effort made to bring key moments from the stage show into the film (the flags in "One Day More," Enjolras's epic death with his body strewn out the window etc) so it felt like they were acknowledging that the musical had it right all along and that it didn't need some big major overhaul or fancy re imagining. (i.e. Footloose, Phantom, most movie musicals) There is no such thing as a perfect adaptation obviously, but they definitely get an A for effort.

4. The pacing - ok this is one thing that just comes with it being a show written for the stage and not the screen. See the thing about movies and why they aren't usually musicals, especially operas, is that movies are all about quick cuts, short scenes, and fancy filming. You can't jump back and forth between largely different settings very convincingly onstage, so everything tends to kind of stay in one place. In the event that some big set change needs to occur, there is something that happens in between like say - a song! Or some cool and emotional transition music! Or a scene! These songs/music/scenes are important to the plot yes, but they also clearly serve a purpose, especially in Les Mis where we are watching the set pieces come on and off and spin round and round the stage. In the movie each song and scene was it's own thing and a lot of the transition music got cut seeing as there were no set changes. This meant that it was hard to tell what was really important and what was kind of filler. There wasn't much buildup for big numbers and instead everything just got kind of mashed together in a strange way. Also I think I understand what the desired effect was of having all the ballads be one shot and really close up (it's just like live theatre! They just sit and sing!), but like... this is a movie. No one is confused and thinks we are in a theatre. You can do movie things, just don't go overboard. Also usually the actors like walk around the stage and stuff, they don't just sit and cry, as emotional as that is. So mostly during those songs ("I Dreamed a Dream," "On My Own," "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables") I just felt like I was watching some actor sit and act really hard.

5. Eponine why you so moody? I mean I know why, but come on! Obviously Marius isn't going to like you if you just mope around all the time! Also girl. WHERE ARE YOUR INNER ORGANS. I legit thought she was CGI.

Like what the actual fuck is she animated

and finally

6. Hugh Jackman was great. He was so obviously comfortable with the whole broadway musical thing that he really was able to do something with it. So many other people seemed stuck in the "ohmygawd i have to sing and act AT THE SAME TIME sweet jesus" stage of things, and there he was eons ahead of them.

Those are my thoughts. I hope you feel more enlightened now that you just spent time you could have spent doing something productive reading all 1000000 pages of this. This is only a portion of what I could have written, so just thank your lucky stars that it is 3am and I am tired.