STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM Les Misérables

It’s not a good time for anyone who is poor in 1800s France. Time for a revolution.

Directed by Tom Hooper, written by William Nicholson, Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer, based on the stage musical by Boublil & Schönberg, and based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo, Les Miserables is the story of escaped parolee Jean Valjean as he tries to live a better life, even becoming a factory owner and mayor, while trying to avoid a prison guard turned new police chief who is the only one who knows of his prisoner status.

While many subplots are scattered throughout, the main one is Valjean raising a little girl, a daughter of one of his workers, whose dying wish was to have him take care of her. He feels responsible because he wasn’t there to protect her from being fired by the abusive foreman, thus leading her to prostitution in order to financially support her and her daughter.

The story spans a total of 17 years, so there’s a lot to go through, but honestly it’s not that hard to keep track. However, it is asking a lot to have an audience having to keep track of so many plotlines. To my counting, I believe there to be four plotlines going on, but there are nearly double that in terms of the characters that have a part in them, since they sometimes come and go in each other’s story.

The plus side is that the film is never guilty with having underdeveloped characters. You understand what they are about, what they go through, and what their psychology is in living in such a country that very much disregards the poor.

Valjean wants to be free; Cosette finds love; Javert wants justice; Marius and the Friends of the ABC revolutionists want to rebel against the monarchy; the Thénardiers just want money since they’re poor to the point of conning people; Eponine wants a love that won’t be returned.

The standout character and performance is Fantine, the factory worker-turned-prostitute. It’s true for the musical, so it’s true for the film adaptation as well. It’s a heartbreaking life to watch with an equally heartbreaking song to listen to, “I Dreamed a Dream.”

And speaking of the songs of Les Miserables… well, what is there to say? While the film is not sung-through like it’s musical counterpart, all of the memorable songs are still present. However, the way the film is treated is very much like a real situation, so no one “sounds good” when they sing. It’s intentionally imperfect depending on where the character is located at and what they are doing when they sing.

I remember I first came across this film when I read about Les Miserables becoming a film. Sure, there are some non-musical adaptations, but this one was a really important one. So, I decided to watch the 25th Anniversary concert performance to get a sense of the story, and was already hooked with the opening song, “Look Down,” adapted on an epic scale in this film with the prisoners pulling in a ship.

Les Miserables the film ultimately became a divisive film on many levels. Sometimes the cast is praised for their singing, and sometimes they were criticized for how bad their singing is (remember, the film goes for realism here), and the direction was equally praised and criticized depending on who’s talking. All I know is by the end, I did cry.