Les Misérables

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler, Matt, Kelly

I must have been 3 or 4 years old when my folks took me to see the first Australian tour of the musical at His Majesty's Theatre. I sill vividly remember certain scenes and number from the show. The years following, the cast recording was on constant rotation in our house and I enjoyed it. But then as the years went on and I fell out with theatre and then back in again, everybody seemed to become more obsessed with it with each passing year. Every time I had to listen to yet another rendition of one of the anthems from the show I would feel overcome with dread at the thought of having to endure it yet again. Whatever magic the show once had was well and truly lost on me from over-saturation. So it was with much trepidation I went into this screening.

The film is a good adaptation of the stage show. That's really all you need to know. The film adaptation brings with it all the problems from the show though. The sprawling text's structure does not easily condense into concise and palatable acts. Characters dropping in and out and new characters being introduced half way through, a whole revolution that feels almost superfluous and the majority of the time spent singing about either wallowing in misery or just being inappropriate feeling slapsticky nonsense. It's all rather melodramatic. But that's what the show is. It's a huge emotional musical with heart on sleeve. You know this going in and that's exactly what you'll get.

So what about the film? Well I guess the biggest deal has been made about recording all the voices live and yes, it's about time. The acting comes through loud and clear and you can be sure the actors take full advantage of being able to eb and flow from the rhythm to suit their performance. I think10 minutes could have been shaved off just from them milking their pauses. I was worried at the start, the first few numbers I had a hard time making out the words at all, but either I got used to it or the mixing got better. I have no idea how the hell they recorded On My Own with rain towers drenching poor old Éponine, there must have been some post dubbing there, and occasionally the room sound more "live" than other times but on the whole, it sounds good.

Handheld camera was an interesting and at times infuriating choice. For such a stylised show, to try and make it naturalistic seems counter-productive but for the most part you get used to it. Every so often though, a cut would come where characters singing out to the skies are suddenly staring almost right down the barrel and it suddenly feels like watching a music video. Actually there's quite a lot of jarring editing going on but I guess you should expect that when recording songs live. Piecing together performances becomes trickier.

And the performances on the whole are great. Everyone gets their little episode with a wide lens shoved right up their nose as they scream or whisper. Such dynamics. At any rate, they can all hold a tune.

It's been so long since I've listened to the whole show that I couldn't tell you where alt he new bits and changed bits are. I forgot about all that recitative and jarring sudden key changes between songs that you never have to hear on cast recordings. What did stand out to me was one or two moments of orchestration that grated in my head. Look, I can't stand classical guitar at the best of times, due much to the same reason as I can't stand having to listen to people belt these songs again, over-saturation. But the few quiet moments of solo guitar intos for Éponine and Marius stuck out like a sore thumb in the midst of a lush orchestral backing.

I'm being nit-picky and cynical. That's just how I am with this show. But make no mistake, it's pretty much the musical I remember transplanted to the screen. You should know if you're gonna love it or hate it based on that.