No person sings within the newest adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1462-page cinder-block traditional, however the absence of rousing musical numbers doesn’t imply that Fred Cavayé’s “Les Misérables” goes for gritty realism. The 179-minute movie, having fun with a reported $37m funds and a number of Massive French Stars trapped in starchily archetypal Massive French Roles, spackles its assets throughout the display screen in a way that has come to face in for “epic” (large vistas of battlefields; gliding aerial angles on meticulous, digitally rendered Nineteenth-century cityscapes; taverns and courtrooms teeming with costumed extras) however that really simply supplies loads of weightless distraction for a way curiously unmoving all of it is. Three gusty hours of heaps to take a look at and nothing to see.
You should not have to be any stripe of “Les Misérables” fan — in truth, you don’t should have learn, seen, attended or listened to a single one in all properly over a century’s value of books, films, TV reveals, theater variations, radio performs, musical productions and comics — to seek out Cavayé’s movie acquainted. The story of Jean Valjean’s decades-spanning beef with Inspector Javert is like chlorine within the water provide: you’ve ingested it whether or not or not you notice.
What’s of be aware, nevertheless, is how little this model distinguishes itself from its predecessors, as if Cavayé, who makes environment friendly work of streamlining the ebook’s sprawl into simply three hours, was aiming to create a type of median, ur-“Misérables” in opposition to which all future “Misérables”-es might be measured. However in going for definitive, it finally ends up spinoff, with cramped ambitions making an enormous manufacturing really feel paradoxically small. Sufficiently small to be higher suited to a smaller display screen — why this isn’t a streaming-service miniseries is anybody’s guess, particularly given Netflix is a manufacturing associate.
The casting is much less perplexing. The function of Valjean, beforehand taken in Francophone variations by Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Gerard Depardieu amongst different luminaries, is virtually an earned honor at this level, a medal that may pinned to the chest of any French actor maturing into his “nationwide treasure” part. Vincent Lindon definitely suits that invoice; it’s much less clear if he suits with actor Louis Peres who performs scorching, younger Valjean, whose rippling musculature is, because the movie begins, being heartlessly exploited in development labor. (Presumably as a result of it is going to be 200 years till Calvin Klein launches their Eternity perfume and wishes him to mannequin for it.)
Valjean’s well-known bread-theft-to-feed-his-starving-family right here turns into a footchase/battle setpiece earlier than he’s caught and consigned to an ever-lengthening jail sentence. Finally launched, the resentful ex-con experiences a Damascene conversion because of the Christian compassion of Monseigneur Myriel (Frédéric Pierrot). Years later, Valjean, now performed by Lindon, has reinvented himself as M. Madeleine, the deeply first rate proprietor of a glass manufacturing unit and the favored mayor of Montreuil.
Javert (Tahar Rahim) has been on a special trajectory. He turns into crueler as he rises via the regulation enforcement ranks, spurred by self-hatred (he smashes loads of mirrors) and frequent apparitions of his mom, who compelled him into thievery as a boy after which deserted him when he received caught pilfering a pocket watch — simply one in all a number of such timepieces that pop up all through “Les Misérables” as an emblem of wealth, but in addition a reminder of on a regular basis that’s passing while you’re watching “Les Misérables.” Which isn’t, to be honest, to counsel that the movie is laggardly. Edited at a brisk clip by Mickael Dumontier, urged alongside by Christophe Julien’s adventure-and-action-pummelled rating, it skims rapidly alongside the floor of the narrative, unburdened by subtext or psychological complexity or socio-political texture. As an alternative, we get loads of plot.
Javert is posted to Montreuil and turns into obsessed by the suspicion that there’s extra to M. Madeleine than meets the attention. Elsewhere the venal Thénardiers (Benjamin Lavernhe and Camille Cottin) are launched scavenging gold enamel from the our bodies of fallen troopers on the battlefield of Waterloo. Within the biggest misfortune of a really unfortunate life, Fantine (Noémie Merlant) stops on the tavern the Thénardiers run on her option to Montreuil along with her angelic daughter Cosette. Mme Thénardier, understanding a mark when she sees one — she has scarcely a single line of dialogue that isn’t about how higher to fleece some poor sap — persuades the younger mom to go away the lady with them so she will be able to bilk common sums out of Fantine for her maintenance.
However Fantine will get fired from M. Madeleine’s manufacturing unit, and turns to promoting her hair, then her enamel and eventually her physique, which M. Madeleine solely discovers when Fantine is already on her deathbed. Full of regret, he vows to observe over Cosette, elevating her as a surrogate father. Cosette (Megan Northam) then falls for Marius (Vassili Schneider) who regardless of his privileged background is a leftist resistance agitator who has additionally befriended the Thénardiers’ daughter Éponine (ensemble MVP Marie Colomb).
What, precisely, are we doing right here, individuals? Why, within the yr 2026, do we want one other “Les Misérables,” particularly one so tired of reflecting its personal time? Even the barricades of the Paris Commune within the finale are little greater than bloodied background coloration. Although maybe, given the latest controversy surrounding the manufacturing’s dad or mum firm, Canal+, reportedly blacklisting filmmakers who criticized the rising affect of their right-wing billionaire majority shareholder, a extra trenchantly political tackle labor resistance and the plight of the working poor would have been an irony an excessive amount of for this stolidly irony-free venture.
Regardless of the case, in a moderately clear try at justifying one more retread, the ultimate phrases of the narration run one thing like, “So long as distress exists, tales like this should all the time be instructed.” Which implies if we’re ever going to staunch the move of countless, interchangeable “Les Misérables” variations, all we’ve got to do is eradicate human distress. So perhaps let’s get to work on that.
