Saturday, December 29, 2012

Les Miserables


We saw Les Mis today. It's long been one of my favorite musicals and just stories of redemption in general. For you die hard musical theater fans, you might agree with me that Russell Crowe was a weird choice for Javert. His singing (and acting of the role) left me wanting.

BUT--do NOT listen to critics who pan this movie. It is wonderful and there are nuances you'll catch in the movie that may have been missed in the stage production. It is a beautiful and heart wrenching film. We loved it...beyond loved it.The crown in our movie theater broke into applause at the end.

As I watched, it occurred to me that in life we all know Javerts...those who just cannot seem to grasp grace, even for themselves. And we all know Jean Valjeans...men and women who have been changed by grace received and grace given. The capturing of that truth is a powerful force in this movie. I thought Hugh Jackman was fantastic. Anne Hathaway was wonderful as Fantine, Aaron Tveit was a great Enjorlas and it was so cool to see the original Jean Valjean, Colm Wilkinson, play the role of the priest. Very nice touch! One of my favorite movies in a long time.

1 comment:

Fajita said...

The hard core stage performance biases that have hit this movie hard have their scores to make, but what they fail to see is that ther is much that can be done on screen that cannot be done on the stae (and vice versa of course).

It is all about the story and stories are told in many ways. I have seen the stage musical four times and was moved by it four times. I saw the movie and was moved by it differently. Partly because of the life stage I am in now, but also because of what they could do on screen.

Yes,good live singing is better than good recorded singing, but the story is not about singing or acting or set or backdrop - it is about the story. Different formats highlight different angles on the story.

Brandon, you are correct! This story of how to understand God and how to understand each other and what the meaning of each of our lives is trumps format of storytelling.

It is an amazing screen production of the most important story of my lifetime.