But this setting looks a lot like many peri-urban areas today. Les Mis is set in 19th-century peri-urban Paris, which is completely removed from the reality of many upper-middle-class Americans, and so is easy to think of as only a musical set piece for romantic and revolutionary songs. But as Victor Hugo, the author, wrote: “The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers.” This doesn’t, at first, seem like it has to do with Les Mis. Every winter, because of the lack of a sewer system, the streets flood, and cholera sweeps through much of peri-urban Lusaka. Every month, they would wait for it to be built, and every month, it was not built. The sewer system was planned for a “ peri-urban” neighborhood located in the space where the city met the countryside. I lived in Zambia and interviewed people about a sewer system that was supposed to be built in the next couple of months. My first job out of college was in economics research. The key to not taking the songs of Les Mis for granted is looking more closely at the book the musical is based on. But what gives those songs their gravitas are the themes of Les Mis: It’s fundamentally about misplaced justice and social inequality.
The songs in Les Mis are so catchy that they become the be-all and end-all of the piece, something to be sung on road trips and, for many people, completely divorced from the story. The musical has, in many ways, overtaken the novel in the cultural imagination. And that’s because it’s one of the few pieces of art that manages to capture basically everything about humanity. It's not the definitive version I would have liked, but it's got enough great moments to make the parts where it falters forgivable.But whether you’re a superfan who wants to fight me about the novel’s 100-page Battle of Waterloo digression or whether Nick Jonas was well-cast as Marius in the 25th anniversary concert (I’m down on Waterloo and up on Nick), or just sort of remember seeing the movie 10 years ago, Les Miserables is something that sticks with you. It's still Les Miz, and I really like Les Miz. It's an odd dichotomy there, but it's still worth seeing for when it is amazing. When it stays small it's incredible, but when it tries to be epic it shoots a little too far. It's a good version though, but a flawed version whose ambition far outweighs its ability. This could have been the definitive version, but ultimately it is just another version.
Eddie Redmayne is surprisingly good, Hugh Jackman was a singer before he was an actor so he's great, Anne Hathaway earned her Oscar, and most of the supporting cast are good.
However much of the cast still does great. He has the strength and power for the roll, but when he has to sing it's painful. On the other hand the star of the show in this scene, Sacha Baron Cohen singing, is surprisingly low key. In Master of the House, the camera is all of the place and there's tons of crazy stuff happening, but none of it is that good. The direction is frenetic and hard to handle, but the performances too often don't go big enough. That being said though, when the movie goes for grander songs like revolution scenes and party scenes, it is both too big and not big enough.
When it's just one person singing, usually the sad songs, and usually in one take, the movie knocks it out of the park. Interestingly, while I was most looking forward to the big budget take on things like battle sequences, it's the more intimate moments that the film does best. The costumes, the sets, and (most of) the performances are excellent. There is a lot to love in this adaptation. However, it just doesn't reach that point. I've seen the musical performed, a few different adaptations, and I really feel like this big budget musical could have been the definitive version.