Les Miserables (2012) / UK / Out in cinemas now / Directed by Tom Hooper / Written by William Nicholson, based on the musical by Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil and the novel by Victor Hugo / Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Aaron Tveit, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter / 157 mins
Les Miserables is a tough egg to crack. For any newbies, going along for a quiet Tuesday matinee of Tom Hooper's film adaptation might find themselves a little disconnected, jaded by the amount of topics it burns through and wondering how people got to be where they are. I am one of those people who are a Les Miserables 'veteran'. A couple of years back, I did the make-up for the stage production that was in town. This was a huge deal for Dannevirke, since the cast could probably be made up of our entire population, the budget was high and we were putting on one of the most professional productions this town has ever seen. While I never actually got to see the production on stage as I spent most of my time backstage, I'd seen enough rehearsals and heard enough of the songs to have them etched into my memory. Going into Les Mis, I was in the mindset that I'd love it - to be honest, this was another one of those War Horse cases but since the end of my blogging is nigh I won't be defending it quite as vociferously - and I did. That's because I knew what the story involved. People must bear in mind that the book is over 1000 pages long, and then the musical is over 3 hours long. So condensing this enormous story with lots going on into a cinematic spectacle for a modern audience was always going to be difficult, and it succeeds, for the most part - probably just for us Les Mis fans.
