On the Power of Les Miserables

Musicals belong on the stage. This is not some cinema snobbery, but a matter of form. Cinema relies on the audience to suspend their belief or reality and invest in those offered by the narrative at hand. Whether it’s a philanthropic scientist bringing dinosaurs back to life or a 1930s gangster running from the law, if we don’t feel enveloped in the world on offer, it’s difficult to really like a film.

Les Miserables suffers this fate. Tom Hooper has created a sumptuous world on film and allowed fans of Les Miserables to see the world brought to life in a way not possible on stage. Yet, on stage we, as an audience, have certain expectations – an orchestrated, singing narrative – that musical theatre provides. These same techniques on film, even though we go in expecting them, are difficult to accept. The story, the songs, the characters may be the same, but the experience is entirely different.

This is not to wholly discount Hooper’s Les Miserables; it is a steamroller of a film. Aesthetically, Hooper and his team have created something special. The film is incredibly well acted and the characters and narrative entirely gripping. At two hours forty it drags and the last thirty minutes feel as long as the first two hours combined. As a film it is difficult to like Les Miserables, but impossible not to be dragged along by its powerful impetus.