Regardless of the silly love business, the second half of “Les Misérables” is where everything gets exciting, as the rebels sing politics and plan their attack.

One of these students, Marius (Eddie Redmayne), happens to spot Cosette across a crowded, poverty-stricken square, and the two fall madly in love without having spoken a single goddamned word to each other. Later still, Valjean and Cosette (now played by the doe-eyed Amanda Seyfried) have settled in Paris, where a group of dreamy, floppy-haired students are planning an uprising against the tyrannical monarchy. He feels responsible for the fate of single mother/forced prostitute Fantine (Anne Hathaway), and rescues her daughter, Cosette, from a pair of abusive, flamboyant innkeepers (Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen). A particularly unwavering officer, Javert (Russell Crowe), doesn’t believe in rehabilitation and makes re-incarcerating Valjean his life’s mission.Įight years later, Valjean has broken parole and reinvented himself as the good-hearted Mayor of a small town. Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is a freshly paroled prisoner concluding a 19-year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread. The plot of “Les Misérables” is pretty convoluted and will probably sound outrageous to the uninitiated. Despite poor critical reception, it became one of the longest running Broadway musicals of all time. Instead, he produced an extremely reverent version of an often-laughable epic.īased on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo, the musical was written in French in 1980 and then adapted by some English guys in 1985. There is no way director Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) could have fixed it without pissing off devotees. But the story is, as my husband put it, preposterous.

anything Andrew Lloyd Weber put his name on). It’s not bad when judged within the realm of its contemporaries (e.g. If you aren’t already a fan of the Broadway smash about the misérable population of 19th century France, the film adaptation is not likely to win you over.

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