Anyway, this entry is about a film that I took myself to see two weeks ago. 'Les Miserables'. I'm not going to say that this is a review, but more of a sharing of my thoughts.
You probably haven't been able to escape this film. I don't know who the readers of this blog might be, but I'm guessing you fall into one of the following categories when it comes to the film:
1. Theatrical types. You may not be an actor or in the performing industry yourself, but you love a bit of musical theatre, maybe you even do amateur dramatics, but as soon as you saw/heard about this film, you knew you HAD to see it. You probably also know all of the words to every song in the musical.
2. Boyfriends/husbands. Your significant other simply had to go and see it because Hugh Jackman would seem like he was singing just to her, and you dutifully went along because that's what god boyfriends/husbands do.
3. Hugh Jackman obsessives (see above)
4. People who found themselves intrigued by the trailer. You were perhaps in the cinema and saw the trailer and thought, "Hang on, is that Russell Crowe singing? Wait a minute, that's lots of famous actors singing, I shall have to investigate."
Or something like that.
Anyway, I had a few reasons for wanting to go. Firstly, I do love quite a large number of the songs in the show. Secondly, I saw the show in London and was slightly disappointed. I think this was mainly to do with our seating, we were so high up in the theatre that I was pretty much staring at the tops of the actors heads, and I got quite bored of this quite quickly. Sometimes I think that film adaptations of musicals should not be done, but I thought that this one would restore my faith in the musical after such a miserable(!) time at the show.
When I went to the cinema to see 'Skyfall', I saw the trailer for 'Les Miserables' on the big screen and almost wet myself with excitement. It looked beautiful, Anne Hathaway looked and sounded positively traumatised, and just hearing the music sent shivers down my spine. I had high expectations.
Later that night I was talking to the other half about the trailers that we had seen and was a little surprised by the way the conversation went... Him: "I didn't know Russell Crowe or Hugh Jackman could sing." Me: "Oh, well don't worry, I won't drag you to come and see it with me." Him: "No, I'll come with you."
Maybe this was my chance to turn him into a musical theatre fan, and then I could drag him to London to see lots of shows! Or not, I ended up going by myself.
I hate being the last person to see a film when everyone else has seen it and has already done their analysis of it, so I booked myself a ticket for the first showing at the local cinema on the day of release. I armed myself with drinks, snacks and tissues and prepared myself.
It started well, the opening bars of music brought tears to my eye, and watching Hugh Jackman pulling that big old boat when he looked hideous gave me a little shiver.
And then Russell Crowe appeared, and did something that I assume he calls 'singing'. I thought he was absolutely dreadful. The only way I can describe what noise he was making is that he seemed like he had a tennis ball stuck in his throat. I'm not a huge fan of him anyway, I can't recall anything stand-out that I've seen him in. I'm not aware if he trained as an actor, but walking and talking at the same time is something very basic that he couldn't master. Every time he was walking they only showed his feet!
I looked him up on the internet after I had seen the film and was surprised to find out that he is in a band. As a singer! I know that the songs he sings in that are probably a lot different to musical theatre but surely he's aware ofhow to put emotion into what he's singing. It seemed to me that he was just standing and singing, not putting aything into it emotionally at all. His character commits suicide towards the end, it just happened far too late.
My other grumbles were to do with the characters of the Thenardiers, played by Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen. Normally I really like these two, but I just felt that they were the wrong choice for the film. They seemed to just be playing them in exactly the same way as they do for most roles that they play these days. Helena was pretty much Mrs Lovett from Sweeney Todd, another film where I winced at her singing, and Sacha absolutely baffled me. I believe he was attempting a cockney accent for when he was speaking, but then, for some unknown reason, he sang with a French accent. Who on Earth does that?!? I was very confused.
I was not let down by Anne Hathaway. Despite being killed off within half an hour or so, she was pretty much the standout actor in the whole film. I'm not the most vain of people, but when it comes to my hair, no-one touches it. The fact that she really had all of her hair cut off was almost enough to send me over the edge, but when she sang 'I dreamed a dream', I couldn't hold back the tears. It was a good job that the woman originally sitting next to me moved away! I'm sure that through the blinking away of all of my tears, that the song was done in one continuous shot, which made it all the more powerful to me. I want to be as good as her one day please!
I was also surprised by a few other people in the film. Samantha Barks was good as Eponine as I had expected. I watched her on TV when she was on the Andrew Lloyd-Webber search for Nancy, and knew that she could sing, but her acting was better than I expected. And who'd have thought that Eddie Redmayne had such a beautiful voice?!?
Sadly Amada Seyfried was a bit of a disappointment to me. I loved her in 'Mamma Mia', she was pretty much perfect in that, but I felt let down in this. I think the character of Cosette is a bit rubbish anyway, I'd much rather be Eponine, but the way she trills like a little bird also started to grate about half way though her screen time.
I was pretty delighted to have found myself a husband in the form of Aaron Tveit as Enjolras though! I thought that Eddie as Marius would have my full attention, until the lovely Aaron opened his beatifully chiselled face to sing! Good lord! A perfect piece of casting there, well done!
Browsing the internet after I had watched the film, I looked at the cast list and saw names that I recognised from the world of musical theatre that had tiny parts in the film. As happy as I was for them that they were in the film, I was slightly annoyed that they weren't shown off to their full potential. I haven't heard one single person say that they liked Russell Crowe's portrayal of Javert, and I have seen plenty of actors who would have been a million times better.
Some people say that they are surprised when they see and hear Hollywood actors sing, but they don't realise that actors train in everything, they can probably dance rings around you too. But then, there's always one that slips through the net. Yes, Russell Crowe, I'm talking about you.
I think it's just a shame that there are so many talented actors out there that get overlooked in favour of big names that sometimes really can't do the job. The film has has huge audiences, probably mainly to do with the cast, but I think that even the pull of Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway could have achieved the same numbers, if the other roles had been cast differently. Jean Valjean and Fantine are mainly the characters that everyone talks about anyway.
But to sum up, I did enjoy the film, and will probably be one of the ones that snap up the DVD on it's release date, but I wasn't as blown away as I thought that I would be. It was beautifully done, and I really did enjoy being so close to the actors faces that you could almost touch their tears and snot as they cried their way through their troubles. It felt so much more real than the stage show, I could really feel the emotion that everyone felt, rather then people standing there singing prettily.
Overall, a good job done. But the next time I watch it, I'll be pulling on my policeman's hat and singing the role of Javert myself to drown out the Crowe!
Nxxx
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