Movie Review: Les Miserables

Anne Hathaway's "I Dreamed a Dream" is one of the poignant highlights of the film.

When the cinema lights were turned off, the usual pre-show noise instantly transformed into silence. This magnified, perhaps, the irresistible desire of the audience to witness the critically-acclaimed musical, Les Miserables, on the silver screen. In my time where geography and time hindered us to marvel the wonders of a musical or a stage play, watching Les Miserables on the big canvas is not just a mere time killer but also a grand experience.

Les Miserables is a whooping delight, made extravagant with hair-raising music with such powerful lyrics, excellent cinematography and a greatly intertwined stories revolving in an era of revolution. This, in my opinion, were the driving force in the sustained silence inside the cinema—something that you really need to appreciate a movie with such an epic scale.

One needs to prepare for the tear-jerking moments hyped up in this “all-singing, all-suffering” film based on the novel by Victor Hugo. Set in 18th-century France and on the verge of a revolution, Les Miserables is a timeless story of broken dreams, unrequited love, selflessness and the unyielding desire for change and freedom. Religion and faith and the goodness of the human spirit dominate the film, but it was melancholy that rings the loudest.



My crush Anne Hathaway, albeit a brief appearance in the film, surprisingly delivered a fantastic performance right at the very start she appeared on the screen. She’s playing the role of Fantine, a once garments factory worker who fell into the trades of prostitution in her ardent desire to support her child, Cosette. In a perfect framing following the rule of thirds, Director Tom Hooper excellently captured Fantine’s raw and painful emotions. And the show-stopping line was dropped: I dreamed a dream in time gone by / When hope was high / And life worth living. As the music hits ascendo, Hathaway’s sobs before delivering such a powerful line defined her emotional momentum: I had a dream my life would be / So different from this hell I'm living! 

This was, without a doubt, an excellent portrayal worthy of an acting award and for me one of the poignant highlights of the motion picture. Other scenes are also worthy of praise, such as the prisoners singing upbeat “Look Down” at the opening scene, the young Cosette’s (who was away from her mother Fantine) yearnings in a song “Castle on a Cloud” (There is a lady all in white, Holds me and sings a lullaby, She's nice to see and she's soft to touch, She says "Cosette, I love you very much.") and Marius (one of the leaders of the revolution who fell in love with the adult Cosette played by the beautiful Amanda Seyfreid) singing his sorrow over the massacre of his friends in the cause of the revolution. It was such a moving moment when he uttered: Oh my friends, my friends forgive me / That I live and you are gone / There's a grief that can't be spoken/ There's a pain goes on and on. And who would forget that song speaking of an unrequited love? Samantha Barks, playing Eponine, did justice to famed song entitled “On My Own.”

It was two years ago when the Academy Award bowed down to this film director Tom Hooper’s The King Speech and I would not be surprised if Les Miserables will win the Best Picture prize in this year’s Oscars. Watching Les Miserables is truly a great experience the young generation who were not given to enjoy it on stage should really watch. I never went out as fulfilled and amazed as what I experienced with Les Miserables through its timeless story, astonishing music and an exceptional assembly of cast who greatly delivered.

LOUIE.