Les Misérables
2012155 minutes
rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
The harshest thing I can say about Tom Hooper's Les Misérables (teaser/trailer) is that I can only imagine those who have not seen the original show wondering what the fuss has been all about. The film is painfully faithful, but film is a wholly different medium than live theater and the translation doesn't quite work. The picture is full of fine performances, almost too good in fact. The film's much-discussed live on-set singing pretty much works, but it only yields inherently different results in a few occasions. But still, the overall production feels akin to seeing the show for the first time, and that's not a good thing. What perhaps felt epic on stage comes off onscreen like a rushed and overstuffed story with occasionally inexplicable narrative choices and occasionally misplaced character emphasis. It comes off feeling less like one of the great epics of Broadway and more like a simplified and audience-pleasing version of the original Victor Hugo novel.
