Les misérables (2012) review

 

Hey, guess who’s back?

It’s me, MayPhoenix and I am back with another review!

Before I start and tell you which movie I am commenting on today, I want to remember you all to follow us on social media, especially Instagram. We are @rewritethemovies.

By the way, today I am going to talk about another movie, and guess what? It's another musical.

The movie is “Les Misérables” the 2012’s musical based on the novel by Victor Hugo.

Now, I studied French Literature for quite a lot of time and Hugo has always been one of my favorite French authors.

I admit I haven’t read the novel (yet) so I don’t know if in the movie they changed a lot of things or not.

But of course, I will give you my opinion, unprofessional as always, just from a girl who really enjoys watching movies and series.

So, let’s talk about this movie, which I watched only once but that was enough for it to become one of my favorite movies.

“Les Misérables” has won three Oscars but I think it deserved more of them and I will explain to you why.

Let’s start by saying that I love Hugh Jackman: he is not one of my favorite actors, but I really like him. I hope you won’t think that for this reason, I can’t be impartial, because trust me, I know when someone messes up or doesn’t deserve an Oscar.

In this case, I really think he deserved an Oscar because his performance was really over the top! I’m really sad he didn’t win.

But I am really glad that Anne Hathaway did because she is brilliant in her performance and she only has a screen time of fifteen minutes! If this isn’t talent, I really don’t know how to call it.

But I will talk about it in the details later.

Now, let’s comment on the Academy Award for makeup. I am not an expert in this area, so I will just say that I was amazed by how the characters really seemed to come from the 19th century.

But the award I think this movie deserved most was the Academy Award for Sound Mixing (and he won it!) because really, the songs are great, and every time I listen to “Do you hear the people sing?” I want to bring a flag and start a revolution using that song as an anthem!

Another thing I really loved about the movie was the cinematography: some scenes are really amazing if you haven’t watched it you can’t understand how good it is.

But now, let me tell you something about the plot. The story starts in 1815 and ends in1832 (the year of the republican insurrection in France) and the main character is Jean Valjean, an ex-prisoner who does everything in his power to start a new life and forget the past, just moving on to be a good man. So he changes his name and finds a respectable job, in a town who everybody knows him as a good and lovable person.

But Inspector Javert, the only person able to recognize him, discovers the truth and Jean has to start to run for freedom.

With him he brings Cosette, an orphan he raises as a daughter and it will be the love for her to make him help the young students that are starting the insurrection.

Russel Crowe plays Javert and I have to say that I will never understand the choice of letting him sing because he isn’t really good at it. But apart from this detail, his acting is really good, obviously.

The actress who plays young Cosette, Isabelle Allen, on the other hand, is really cute and is also an amazing singer! I also loved the actor who played Gavroche, he was a great singer and actor as well, especially since he was so young! He did really a great job. 

This is a dramatic movie, of course, but I have to say that the scenes with Helena Bonham Carter and the actor who plays her husband were really funny, I had laughed so much!

Another thing I noticed and I may not be wrong, is that it was similar from the Disney movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and since the novel that inspired that movie was also one of Hugo’s masterpiece, is probably for that reason.

But what I really loved about this movie was the social message. It makes you understand a lot with strong words, especially when they come out from the mouth of a child. In particular, I can’t stop thinking at the phrase in Gavroche’s song that says: "Here's the thing about equality: everyone's equal when they are dead".

I was really touched by the scene where the insurrection actually started because the songs and the cinematography are the best ones of the movies. It’s really spectacular.

But this movie, like a lot of other ones, has some flaws: first of all the love story between Cosette and one of the students is completely useless to the plot. Then the unbalance that there is between the length of the scenes: some are eternal and also quite boring, and other ones are too short and leave you wanting to see more.

But the best scene of this movie is absolutely the final scene: I felt so emotional that I cried a little bit, and again the editing and the cinematography were way over the top, they were PERFECT.

My final rating is 9,5/10.

I really hope you will watch it and let me know what you think about it because trust me, this movie is amazing.

Kisses and love,

MayPhoenix.