3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.26.12
Anne Hathaway’s performance, by
itself, is worth the price of admission.
 |
| Having finally realized that his failure to intervene earlier has cost Fantine (Anne Hathaway) her dignity and a great deal more, Valjean (Hugh Jackman) promises to do better. Sadly, aside from the fact that his actions on Fantine's behalf likely will be too late, he doesn't even know about her young daughter, also in desperate need of rescue. |
Her climactic solo on “I Dreamed
a Dream” may be the best musical moment ever captured on film. Nay, one of
cinema’s finest five-minute scenes, period.
Words cannot convey the power of her
performance, which director Tom Hooper wisely, amazingly, captures in a single long take. Hathaway starts out gangbusters, never taking cover in the multiple
edits that have become ubiquitous in too many of today’s lesser musicals, and she
simply gets better, stronger, more poignant and powerful as the tune continues.
This is no standard-issue pause
for song; Hathaway emotes throughout, never losing her character’s
heartbreaking anguish, instead using the lyrics themselves, pouring body and
soul into every syllable, as the scene builds, and builds, and builds, until
achieving a level of intensity that grabs us by the throat. Her work is
positively wrenching.
When she concludes, finally, we
sink back with exhaustion. Truly stunned. Blown away. Aware of having witnessed
a movie moment for the ages.
Wow.
I can’t say that Hooper achieves the
same level of excellence throughout all of this long-awaited, big-screen
adaptation of Les Misérables, but he certainly draws similarly superb
performances from most of his cast. His film is highlighted by numerous
show-stopping songs: some solos, others displaying the exquisite harmonies
woven into Claude-Michel Schönberg’s often complex score.
Hugh Jackman is well cast as the
stalwart Jean Valjean, the tragic hero whose destiny changes first with an act
of kindness by a clergyman, and then again after accepting responsibility for
an orphaned little girl. Hathaway is sublime as the doomed Fantine; Sacha Baron
Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter provide ample comic relief as the greedy,
grasping Thénardier and his wife.
Their production number, “Master
of the House,” is another marvelous set-piece, this one an imaginatively
choreographed display of larcenous behavior that evokes fond memories of
Fagin’s “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two,” in 1968’s Oliver!
