Popcorn Kernels: Mother Of Sighs

Some quick reviews of 2018 movies I've been catching up on, now that I have to wait until discount day to pay money for them instead of just swiping MoviePass like a shopping montage in an 80's movie.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Year: 2018

Director: David Yates

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Johnny Depp
Run Time: 2 hours 14 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Newt Scamander & Co. have a series of adventures while the evil wizard Grindelwald gathers his forces, and maybe they'll do something interesting in the next one.

Now, nobody is pretending that any spinoff franchise could ever be as huge a phenomenon as Harry Potter. Even though the films in that franchise could be pretty patchy, there's no denying their huge cultural impact, pushed into the stratosphere by the world-rending book series they were based on. I'm not asking Fantastic Beasts or its mush-mouth titled sequel to be anything close to that. I am asking for it to have the slightest vestige of quality, however. Unfortunately, you can't always get what you want.

From the title on down, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a miscalculation of biblical proportions. It's visually illegible, constantly plastering plasticky CGI across its choppily edited, mud-colored frame, but that's nothing compared to how illegible the script is. Its incoherent attempts at fan service (they shoehorn in every Harry Potter figure who might conceivably have been alive at the time, but their comings and goings blend in with the sheer mass of new characters we meet who get lost in dead-end plot lines or appear without warning as if they've been here the entire time) tumble over a plot that not only forgets to include very many magical creatures, but also bungles every single lead character from the previous movie, even though it made egregiously major retcons to include two of them in the first place.

The plot gets so unnecessarily complicated that a character literally has to sit us down for ten full minutes to give a flashback-aided presentation about what the hell we've even been watching this whole time, right before a climax that introduces about a half dozen different conflicts that haven't had a scrap of setup.

Rowling can't even resist doubling down on the single worst aspect of the single film: the reveal that the Americans call Muggles No-Maj's. As in, they have no magic. I like the idea that different wizarding communities have different slang terms just like the real world, but it's probably the laziest fake word I've ever heard in a world in which fake words are literally the backbone. Enter Grindelwald, which introduces other terms like the French "non-magique" and the term "can't-spells."  Is she just trolling me at this point? By film 5 in this franchise (yeah, that's the plan, but we'll see if they get there after this trainwreck), are we going to learn that the Australian wizards call them "have-to-throw-shrimp-on-the-barbies-cuz-they-bad-at-wandz"?

Any way you slice it, it's just a mess. Everything good about the first film, which was only OK to begin with, had been left to rot. The fun frolicking with magical creatures is present in small pockets of the film, but it all feels very Looney Tunes and it actively fails to gel with the movie's bizarre choice to focus on the brewing conflict that seems to be leading to Magic World War I. And Eddie Redmayne, who was a charming presence in the first film, is giving a performance that forgets most of his quirks and tics in favor of a stern locked jaw and staring off into space. The plot never really makes a space for him (the plot is much more focused on Dumbledore - who is barely in the film - and Grindelwald - who is in far too much of the film, and spends too much time bragging that he knows something we don't, which when revealed turns out to be a very lame thing), and he's content to just be the wallpaper anyway.

There are quite a few Harry Potter movies that I don't like very much, but I never expected to hate one of these. Well, there's a first time for everything.

Rating: 2/10

Suspiria

Year: 2018
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth
Run Time: 2 hours 32 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

A young woman joins a modern dance school in 1977 Germany that may or may not be definitely run by witches.

One way to put me instantly on your movie's bad side is to split it into chapters. Suspiria announces right away that it's going to have six acts, which means I'll constantly be checking in and going "we're still only on act two? Why isn't this movie over yet!" My impatience aside, Suspiria really revels in how drawn-out the whole process is. Two and a half hours of Suspiria is waaaay too much Suspiria. The original is 92 minutes long, the perfect amount of time to be completely rattled and shaken up before the film dumps you on the cold concrete.

However, horror films often can't sustain tension for much longer than that, not that this Suspiria seems particularly concerned with building tension anyway. It's another exercise in style like the previous film (to that end, I do think Guadagnino was the best choice to fill Argento's shoes), and in these elements it works pretty damn well. The set design is impressively austere and the cinematography wickedly echoes the original film by being its complete aesthetic opposite, entirely on purpose. And my favorite element here is the jagged sound design, which layers dialogue from other scenes over odd shots where it doesn't seem to belong, evoking the ethereal and odd sound dubbing of older Italian filmmaking. But where Argento's Suspiria served form at the expense of function, Guadagnino liberally ladles his style over a six-course meal of plot that makes the table groan under its weight.

The most obvious misstep here is the inclusion of the political turmoil in 1977 Germany, as if the location and time period of the original actually had a single thing to do with anything. It's a choice that paints Guadagnino into a corner and this material only ever feels clumsily shoehorned in. Less so the stuff about dealing with the lingering specter of the Holocaust, but it still intersects with the main thrust of the movie so little that you only ever feel like you're being dragged away from where the real action is.

As for this action, it does provoke a stirring of horror or two over its time. There's plenty of exquisite match cutting here that utilizes modern dance as an aggressive, muscular framework for some disgusting imagery that owes everything to precise editing and impressive visual effects. And the eventual climax of the film is a colorful orgy of terror that does make sitting through the entire thing worth it, but while you're in the middle of the sitting part, the movie really does do its best to put you right to sleep.

Rating: 5/10

Searching

Year: 2018
Director: Aneesh Chaganty
Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing, Joseph Lee
Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

A desperate father uses his computer to solve the mystery of his daughter's disappearance.

I missed Searching in theaters because of the aforementioned Great MoviePass Implosion of 2018, but I also wasn't feeling too motivated to go check it out because of a pretty petty reason. People were staring awestruck at this movie because it shows a whole story over a computer screen. As if Unfriended wasn't sitting right there, having done the exact same thing four years ago. And that wasn't even the first, because we have The Den, and presumably some other film that The Den was ripping off. Nothing is original, my friends. I'm just rankled that the discourse ignored the teenybopper horror film because that's what discourse likes to do.

And when it comes down to brass tacks, that teenybopper horror film is much more honest with its conceit. Searching is a fun movie with a gripping plot, but it's also a cheater. We cut between multiple screens (including just a straight-up TV), we get video footage of John Cho at all times because he leaves FaceTime open like a crazy person, we have actual non-diegetic music plastered over the big moments, and we get close-ups of all the important material onscreen because audiences can't be trusted to pay attention. Unfriended may be a sillier movie, but it's true to its format and I want to make sure it gets that respect.

That said, it's not like Searching is bad. On the contrary, it's a quite delightful little film. It's a muscular, pared-down thriller that - like most thrillers - stumbles a bit in its third act, but takes you on a wild roller coaster ride just the same. It also utilizes real social media and apps like Venmo, Facebook, Tumblr, and the like in a way that isn't just product placement like a Ralph Breaks the Internet, but rather a reminder that this is the fabric of what a teenager does all day. It highlights just how much of our lives are splayed out across the Internet for any enterprising viewer to piece together, and it's an excellent, chilling reminder of just how public most of our lives have become.

Unfortunately, as a two-hander between John Cho and Debra Messing, it's less than thrilling. Cho is good here, as he is pretty much anywhere, but neither quite has the presence or gravitas to sell the ridiculous twists that come swinging for the fences in the later portions of the film. But at any rate, they're absorbing enough that you do forget entirely that you're just watching a computer screen, and that's a recipe for a fun night on the couch with Redbox, even if it's not going to change your life.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1658
Reviews In This Series
Suspiria (Argento, 1977)
Suspiria (Guadgnino, 2018)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Yates, 2016)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Yates, 2018)

Care Of Magical Creatures

Year: 2016
Director: David Yates
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol
Run Time: 2 hours 13 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Of course the Harry Potter franchise wasn’t dead. Did you think J. K. Rowling would abandon her money geyser to keep writing Robert Galbraith mysteries in quiet cafés forever? I’m just glad the franchise is actually moving in a different direction instead of showing yet another wave of students carve their way through a mountain of Hogwarts homework assignments (The Cursed Child was quite enough, thank you).

I was apprehensive when I learned that the new film would in some way be based on the Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but as a literate human being in my age bracket, I was obligated to check it out.

At least she didn’t pick Quidditch Through the Ages, thank Merlin.

In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, magical creature researcher and advocate Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives in New York City in 1926, carrying a case that contains all the creatures he has been studying (it’s much bigger on the inside). After a mix-up at the bank, Muggle factory worker Kowalski (Dan Fogler) accidentally sets loose a couple of the creatures and gets tangled up in a frantic chase to recapture them with Newt and ex-Auror Tina (Katherine Waterston, and if you don’t know what an Auror is, good luck).

Meanwhile, am mysterious dark force has been wreaking havoc upon the city, causing local No-Maj’s (as the Americans call Muggles – get it?  “no magic” – because apparently Rowling forgot how to name things) to become suspicious about magical activity. With the dark wizard Grindelwald still at large, the Magical Congress of the United States of America (which, when the acronym is pronounced, only sounds like “Yakuza” to my delight) feat that this new Salem movement may provoke an all-out war. President Seraphina Piquery (Carmen Ejogo) and Director of Magical Security Percival Graves (Colin Farrell) suspect that one of Scamander’s beasts is responsible, despite his fervent assertions that they’re harmless. So, he’s also tasked to figure out what actually IS causing this mayhem while he avoids the long arm of the magical law.

What a day!

In fact, Fantastic Beasts is even better than just a change of pace. It’s a light, fun fantasy adventure that erases the dour tone of the last few Harry Potter films, returning us to a world of whimsy and wonder… Mostly. The central conflict of this film, which is thankfully treated more like a B-plot, is prone to rather sudden shifts in tone that don’t suit the movie one whit. One minute we’re pirouetting in a sanctuary for teleporting ducks, and the next Ezra Miller shows up playing a terminally maudlin child that looks like he stepped off the set of a Tim Burton film, but acts like he was written by Charles Dickens on a bad day.

These sequences range from the bizarrely overwrought (a little girl plays hopscotch while chanting a rhyme about witch murder) to the actively bad (there’s a bit of business about a presidential election that seems to be setting up a despotic villain – topical – but randomly vanishes halfway through), so the marriage of these two tones is fraught with tension. These sections are also marked by the absolute worst of James Newton Howard’s generic score, which quotes Saw in the weirdest way possible. Again, luckily the move seems to recognize that this portion of the plot is junk, so it shoves it offscreen as roughly and as often as possible.

Pay no attention to the subplot behind the curtain.

But if you excise that chunk of the movie from your brain, the rest is –in a word – fantastic. Mostly. OK, it’s not perfect, but it’s a breezy bit of popcorn fun that is much needed in this horrifying time we’re living in.

The creature effects range from solid (an instantly plushy-able niffler) to iffy (they never have been able to get house elves entirely right), but they’re all triumphs of colorful, fantastical design. And, amusingly, the single worst CGI creature in the whole thing is a lion. Like, just a straight-up, real-ass lion fro the Central Park Zoo, which really puts everything else in perspective. Where the effects really shine is in creating a living, breathing 1920’s New York City that serves as the perfect nostalgic backdrop for the overflowing magical mayhem of this timeless tale.

It’s thanks to this setting that Fantastic Beasts thrives. Placing a grand tale of wizardry and mystical creatures smack dab in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world is an ingenious juxtaposition that makes the film pulse with lively, jaunty energy. Although some of the humor tips toward the juvenile (Oh my, a man couldn’t possibly deal with talking about tampons! Gee whiz, that dude is much too fat to fit into a suitcase designed to transport enormous magical creatures! Ho ho! What fun!), it sparkles with a joie de vivre that can’t be denied.

And despite being a transparent marketing plot, there’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell that you won’t exit the theater loving the niffler.

But I’ve been neglecting the human element here, which is uncommonly strong. Redmayne is an excellent addition to Rowling’s wizarding world, providing an exquisitely strange energy to his role. But the real standout here is relative unknown Dan Fogler, whose Muggle bravado (I refuse to call him a No-Maj, because apparently this is how little the Brits think of us) is aced with a sublime cluelessness and whip-smart comic timing. I also couldn’t leave out the Marilyn Monroe-esque beauty Queenie (Alison Sudol), who hides some sharp anarchistic edges beneath her airy façade. Katherine Waterston is the least of our heroes because her role is a bit of a cypher, but she grounds the silliness of her motley crew. It’s a perfect mixture of the funny and the unreal.

So Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has its fair share of flaws (not the least of which is how it makes my fingers cramp up whenever I have to type that full title), but it’s a return to form for spotty Potter director David Yates. It’s not quite at the level of his magnum opus The Half-Blood Prince, but that five-year break certainly put a pep in his step. My advice? Go see Fantastic Beasts. Wipe your slate clean of expectations, and have yourself a plain old-fashioned good time.

TL;DR: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a fun, light fantasy adventure that overcomes its shaky tone.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1107
Reviews In This Series
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Yates, 2016)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Yates, 2018)

Popcorn Kernels: Runners-Up

In my quest for Oscar nominees, I’ve come across a couple flicks that didn’t quite manage to snag the coveted Best Picture slot. Here are my mini-reviews. These are their stories.

The Danish Girl

Year: 2015

Director: Tom Hooper

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Amber Heard

Run Time: 1 hour 59 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

In 1920’s Denmark, celebrated painter Einar Wegener begins to transition into a woman (Lili Elbe), becoming a transgender pioneer while attempting to maintain a relationship with his wife Gerda. Incidentally, it’s almost impossible to pick the right pronoun when somebody is transitioning mid-sentence. Somebody should get on that.

Tom Hooper is the arthouse counterpart to Tobe Hooper. Both men with dubiously inconsistent directing prowess, they’ve managed to stumble their way into wide acclaim and the occasional masterpiece. While Tobe might be more of a household name thanks to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist, Tom has earned himself a ludicrously high number of Oscar nominations. It’s up to you to decide which fate is better. So here we have The Danish Girl, his follow-up to The King’s Speech and Les Misérables, and the Oscarbaitiest film of his career to date, which is saying something.

Let me tell you right off the bat, the man’s direction is quite distinctly one of the worst things about the film, which is actually pretty decent, all things considered. Stagey and far too focused on geometry rather than human emotion, Hooper’s work stifles the film while keeping the audience at arm’s length. He frames people behind objects to an almost obnoxious degree, as though deliberately baiting viewers to call him out. It’s a load of distracting nonsense that obscures what could be a fun, lush melodrama. 

The material is already so far from reality (based on a book that’s a fictional account of the lives of Lili and Gerda, it is two planes removed from the truth, which is more interesting but light-years less angsty) that a truly wonderful over-the-top weepy could have been born from The Danish Girl. However, as it stands, the film is just a dry vehicle for two incredibly strong performances. If you think of stars Eddie Redmayne an Alicia Vikander (fresh from her starmaking turn in Ex Machina) as a work of art, the film itself is just a particularly ostentatious frame in which they are being displayed.

As far as the co-stars have terrific, bristling chemistry together, their individual performances are even better. Eddie Redmayne really is a triumph here, playing a real person rather than a dramatic type. There is one moment early on in the movie where his breath catches nervously upon being discovered. It’s a microscopic moment, but it took my breath away. Even more notable for her subtlety, Vikander holds her own, frequently hoisting the movie on her back and carrying it single-handedly across the finish line. For all that Redmayne is spectacular, Vikander is steadfast and never flickers. This is partially the script and partially her performance, but The Danish Girl is primarily her story and for good reason.

There are many better films that The Danish Girl could have been, but at least the one that it is has some incredible elements. And Amber Heard doesn’t have enough scenes to be a distraction, even though her skill has much improved in the decade since All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Thank goodness for small favors. So really, the movie succeeds in spite of Hooper and there’s absolutely no question why The Danish Girl is leading the Oscar acting categories yet notably absent from Best Picture.

Rating: 6/10

Joy

Year: 2015

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper 

Run Time: 2 hours 4 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A young woman puts her life’s savings on the line to pursue her dream: inventing things that improve the lives of others and selling them on QVC.

I’ve been compromised. After avoiding the twee-looking ensemble exploits of David O. Russell’s two previous Oscar-nominated films, I finally caved and watched Joy. Although it’s more of a Jennifer Lawrence showcase than anything, it’s nevertheless the third of a decreasingly prestigious bunch. We don’t have much time, so let’s get into it.

For the first half of its run time, Joy is – let’s be frank – uncompromisingly messy. A nervous attempt at evoking the fairy tale charm of Amélie, it’s too clammy and self-serious to pull off that live action cartoon feeling. This section is filled to the brim with broad characterizations, meta narration, and metaphors so clunky that you couldn’t even sell them for scrap. One in particular, a deranged and obvious cicada metaphor that treats the insects like metamorphosing butterflies, is actually rejected by the film itself in a line explicitly decrying its presence.

Even the technical aspects come crumbling down around Joy’s first act. The pacing goes haywire, leaping through scenes at a breakneck speed, the young actress playing Joy’s daughter (oh yeah, Jennifer Lawrence’s character is both named Joy and a mother of two – roll with me, here) seems to be actively attempting to tank her scenes with a dizzy, blank-faced performance, and there’s a flubbed line reading that somehow managed to avoid getting excised despite being in glaring need of another take. It’s amateurish at best, hopelessly pandering at worst.

The film finally pulls itself together with the introduction of Bradley Cooper’s character, who gets an entrance that treats him like an actual king. With all the fanfare his appearance gets, you’d think that Joy had resurrected Elvis. It’s deeply mystifying, but Cooper does a terrific job injecting the proceedings with raw, unfiltered life, finally giving Lawrence something concrete to play off. Up to this point, she’s been performing in a vacuum and she finally gets to blossom, giving her role an anxious, immediate humanity.

Joy’s newfound coherence and quality doesn’t make it an exquisite film – a series of obligatory and profoundly hollow melodrama beats see to that. But the film finally comes into its own, finishing off its lot with engaging pizzazz, even managing to make a QVC infomercial breathe with crackling energy. Here, the camera is actually awake, transforming its initial lunatic aspirations into a more straightforward and satisfying story.

All in all, Joy isn’t terribly recommendable, though it’s a light enough trifle that it’s not a trial to sit through. The vastly improved second half effectively cancels out the first half’s muddled tangle, resulting in a film that leaves exactly no impression. I’ll take this over a bad impression any day, but I can’t help but wish I got more out of it.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1107

Illegal Aliens

Year: 2015

Director: Andy & Lana Wachowski

Cast: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne

Run Time: 2 hours 7 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The Wachowskis' second film, The Matrix is an incredible sci-fi action movie, mixing theology, weird science, and modern computer analytics into a heady concoction of modern cinema. Their newest feature, Jupiter Ascending, combines many of those same elements into a garbled, nondescript mass of pixels. Sometimes people should quit while they're ahead.

I would say "quit before they put Channing Tatum in antigrav rollerblades," but that's a bit  too specific.

At the very least, Jupiter Ascending means well, and we can't fault it for that. Telling the story of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), the daughter of a Russian immigrant who was born over open water and thus without a country, who discovers that she is the reincarnated spirit of a space queen, the film attempts to cover important issues regarding racism, environmentalism, capitalist greed, and universal morality. What it ends up being is a dour romantic comedy tarted up as an overwrought space opera, and we can fault it for that.

Jupiter discovers that her DNA sequencing is exactly the same as a murdered space monarch, who belongs to a family that worships genetics and owns planets, harvesting their populations to create an elixir of immortality. If that sentence was hard to get through, imagine being pummeled with it for 2 hours and 7 minutes. A variety of side-switching and double-crossing ensues, but what the plot boils down to is that the evil Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne) wants to prevent Jupiter from inheriting his mother's title, which includes the Earth - a planet he is keen on harvesting. With the help of space cop/wolfkin rogue Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), Jupiter needs to play the intergalactic game of thrones until she either wins or dies, saving the Earth in the process.

Did that make sense? No. Do I care? No. I'm just trying to do justice to what it was like to watch it.

Jupiter Ascending is spectacularly muddled, tossing in unexplained plot points at random and attempting to smooth them over with patently ridiculous pseudo-science. Honestly, it sounds campy and fun enough: the Russian mob, magical bee powers, and genetic reincarnation all flit across the screen during the course of the story's tenure. But the real problem with the film is that it plays all of its weirdness out with deadly serious intent.

The difference between the film that Jupiter Ascending wants to be and the film that it is is staggering. Anything exciting or pulpy is smothered with unending, piteously hopeless feints at drama and profundity. It's a perpetual motion machine of self-important mediocrity.

Kind of like how Hollywood convinces itself that this type of CGI is "totally cool" and "definitely believable, keep up the good work."

Jupiter Ascending is bad, you guys. Real bad.

Plot points unfurl at random times from inscrutable angles, only to vanish before you can focus your eyes on them.

The monochromatic color scheme grates against your vision, preventing you from being able to discern anything other than vague motion and then abruptly lurching into hideous, searing teal and orange because that's how movies are supposed to work, right? 

Eddie Redmayne can not pull off his bargain basement Charlize Theron impression, Channing Tatum proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's infinitely better suited to comedy, and Mila Kunis somehow manages to escape making any kind of impression at all.

All the action scenes incessantly repeat the same three tricks ad nauseum like the film is being played on an Atari joystick, and the major climactic scene of the film is repeated in the exact same way immediately after. It's a grinding, churning bore with some truly embarrassing CGI and color grading.

Orange on orange. Inspired.

There's enough effort and genuine personality poured into it that it's not a complete waste of time at any level, but there's no getting around the fact that it's damn near unwatchable as a narrative film. I would not recommend Jupiter Ascending to any casual film fan, unless their goal was to intimately understand the arrhythmic beating of the Wachowskis' collective heart.

In that regard it is a damn humanistic masterpiece. In anything else, it's an overbaked trifle that is better swept under the rug.

TL;DR: Jupiter Ascending is pure, overwrought, self-important nonsense, but there's a heaving personality behind it that's hard to ignore.

Rating: 4/10
Word Count: 745

Archive: December 29, 2012

Les Misérables

Year: 2012
Director: Tom Hooper
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway
Run Time: 2 hours, 37 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

The December 25th release of Les Misérables made for a not so merry Christmas. Popcorn and tears covered theater floors in equal proportions.

From the beginning, this movie had several strikes against it in terms of the modern audience:

1. It is a musical.
2. It is a musical about the French Revolution.
3. It is a musical about the French Revolution in which all but 10-odd lines or so are sung.
4. It is over two hours long.
5. It was released on a holiday.

In spite of this, Les Mis made a ludicrous amount of money. On Christmas Day alone, it earned 18.2 million dollars.

That’s 8 million more than Rent made in its first weekend.

That’s 9 times the opening gross of Chicago, 6 times more than Little Shop of Horrors, and twice as much as Sweeney Todd.

That’s twice as much money as Once made in its entire run.

The theater I work at had to open another screening room just to accommodate the influx of ticket buyers.

So the question we need to ask is, in terms of quality, did this movie truly earn its box office?

The answer is yes.

You guys, Les Misérables is friggin’ incredible.

Yes, it is over-the-top, bombastic, and occasionally full-of-itself. But you know what? It’s a musical. Those qualities might kill a normal movie, but only serve to enhance the spectacle that provides the lifeblood of this narrative.

[Warning, spoilers ahead. While the idea of “spoilers” doesn’t really apply to Les Mis, because it’s more about the performances than the narrative, if you want to remain in the dark about who lives and dies, I advise you skip past the next few paragraphs to the picture of the adorable bunny.]

For those of you who don’t know, the story (based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name) follows ex-convict Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) across three decades of his life. Essentially, the movie is divided into chapters, the first of which follows him after his release from a 19-year sentence (his crime: stealing a loaf of bread). A local preacher shows him how to be an honest man, and Valjean escapes parole to become the mayor of a small French town. The police Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe) devotes himself to tracking Valjean down in the name of justice.

The second chapter focuses on Fantine (Anne Hathaway), a factory worker who was turned out onto the street for bearing an illegitimate child. Her daughter Cosette (Isabelle Allen) is in the care of two conniving innkeepers, Mssr. and Madame Thénardier (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter) who demand more and more money from her. To pay off her debt, Fantine turns to selling her hair and teeth and eventually turns to prostitution. Her pride broken, she eventually succumbs to a severe case of Death (It’s a musical. These things just kind of happen.). Valjean, now the mayor, vows to take care of her daughter and retrieves her from the Thénardiers (after paying quite a hefty sum). Javert discovers Valjean’s true identity and tries to stop him but he escapes and is once more on the run, little Cosette in tow.

The third chapter (which one could alternatively think of as the Second Act) revolves around the rebellion in Paris. A bunch of college-aged men, chief among which are Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and Enjolras (Aaron Tveit, a personal hero of mine), are preparing to fight against the king and the unfair justice system. Valjean has retired to a small home on the outskirts of the city with a now teenage Cosette (Amanda Seyfried). In an effort to prevent her from knowing his true identity as well as escaping capture, he has become a recluse and quite an over-protective parent. One day in the Parisian markets, Valjean is discovered by the Thénardiers as they try to scam him for money. Javert is called in, and Valjean rushes home to pack his things and skip town, much to the dismay of Cosette, who has met and instantly fallen in love with Marius. 

Marius enlists the help of his friend Éponine (Samantha Barks), the daughter of the Thénardiers, to track down Cosette. She does so, although she is madly in love with him. He abandons his rebel brothers to try and find her, but upon learning that she is being taken across the sea, he is heartbroken and returns to fight. The battle begins at a barricade blocking off a side street. Javert, dressed as a Parisian, seeks to undermine them but is discovered and tied up to be dealt with later. The rebels are joined by Éponine, dressed as a man, and Valjean, who shows Javert mercy and secretly sets him free, much to Javert’s dismay.

The battle begins and the casualties soar. Éponine sacrifices herself for Marius and dies in his arms, finally revealing her love. Marius is wounded, and his unconscious body is dragged into the sewers by Valjean, who once again encounters Javert. Javert, ever devoted to his concept of justice, attempts to capture Valjean, but is convinced to let him through, saving Marius’s life. Although he has done a good deed, he is conflicted by his duty to justice and the fact that Valjean spared his life and ends up hurling himself off a bridge.

The rebels fall, the revolution fails, and Marius and Cosette are reunited in the wake of tragedy. On their wedding day, Valjean can no longer bear to hold his secret over Cosette and runs off to a monastery. He doesn’t want Cosette to know his true identity, and has left, finally realizing it is how he can best protect her from ever being in danger. However, Marius and Cosette track him down and are there to comfort him as he dies of Being Old and finally rejoins Fantine in the afterlife as trumpets blare and the voice of the revolution lives on in the memories of all that have sacrificed themselves for it.

Now. That’s quite a lot to swallow. And that is a bare bones summary. Now you understand why this movie has such an expansive run time.

OK spoilers crew, we’re safe now.

The story of Les Misérables is tragic and beautiful (sorry to tantalize you spoiler-fearing guys) and the filmmakers mostly manage to capture the grandiosity of it all, especially in the ensemble numbers (Look Down, At the End of the Day, Red and Black, One Day More, and the Epilogue).

Now let’s talk about the Grand Experiment. Singing live in camera is something that has never been attempted on this scale before and it overwhelmingly, undeniably, works.

This method allows the actors much more freedom to emote and feel the music and produces some absolutely incomparable performances. Anne Hathaway’s I Dreamed a Dream is, and I have no doubt in my mind about saying this, the absolute best performance of that song that has ever been sung. Eddie Redmayne’s Empty Chairs At Empty Tables and Hugh Jackman’s performance of Valjean’s Soliloquy are also standouts of the craft.

My God you guys, what an absolute success.

Now I’m sure you’ve heard people deriding Russell Crowe’s voice and it’s true that he cheats on the octaves occasionally and his voice is certainly less polished than the other performers but let me tell you it totally works for the character of Javert, an overly upright servant of the law.

Personally, I was more bothered by Redmayne’s voice. While he can certainly sing and I’ve already raved about his performance of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, overall he kind of sounded like he had a frog in his throat the entire time and it irritated me more often than  not.

Also to those of you who doubted Amanda Seyfried, she hits some spectacular high notes. And if you absolutely can’t stand her, don’t worry, she’s really not in that much of the movie.

The film also features two astoundingly well-rounded performances from child actors, which is decidedly uncommon.

I’d have to say my biggest qualm going into the film was about Baron Cohen and Bonham Carter’s presence, but they nailed it. The Thénardiers are the comic relief of Les Mis, and they are given a lot to work with. I’m normally irritated with Sacha Baron Cohen beyond all reason, but his performance was absolutely organic and natural, not at all distracting from the overall narrative.

So far, I’ve had very little negative to say about the movie, so I think it’s time to raise my biggest complaint: the camera work.

The cameraman clearly adored extreme close-ups, which have their place in a film, but they were so overwhelmingly featured that sometimes the film felt claustrophobic, and once a solo number started, the camera would fix itself in place and resolutely refused to move.

I Dreamed a Dream was this. For three minutes. I’d have loved to see more dynamic cinematography, but I suppose it’s not too much of a sin to let this performance speak for itself.

In closing, Les Misérables is a huge film with huge ambition and almost entirely across the board achieves what it sets out to do. A caveat, it’s definitely a movie that you have to be in the right mood for, and if you prefer comedies, run in the opposite direction as quickly as you can. But even if you don’t like musicals, I urge you to try this one out. It’s manly, it’s  about criminals and war. The operatic style with little dialogue and the in camera vocal work are both unique in the world of film musicals and it’s definitely worth it to see for that as well.

Odds and ends: DAT WAIST

TL;DR: Les Misérables is a film of epic proportions featuring heart-wrenching performances, stellar vocals, and a complex and subtle story about the true meaning of justice, virtue, love, and dreams.

Rating: 9/10

Side Bar: This long-winded article contains 1,704 words, which is about 0.3% of Victor Hugo’s 1,500 page novel. Try that on for size.

Word Count: 1749