Les Miserables

Two movies in less than two weeks! That's a LOT for us. LOL

In any case, since both hubby and the kids were off yesterday from work/school, we went to see Les Miserables in the afternoon. I thought it was very well done. :-)

Hubby and I saw the show on the West End on our one trip to London in 1991 and loved it. We also own the complete cast recording both on CD and mp3. We used to listen to it a lot, though we haven't as much lately. We did listen on a long car trip last summer and stopped the recording regularly to explain to the kids what was going on so they had some idea of the story. Since they were familiar with both the story and the music, we took my daughters despite it being rated PG-13 and them being under 13. I had read up on it on a couple of parent ratings sites, so I had an idea of what to expect and I thought they could handle it. Not sure they got it all, but we did discuss some things afterwards (like "Why did Javert commit suicide?" and "Why didn't the scene at the end with the people who had died look like Heaven?").

I think the Oscar nominations for Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were well-deserved. I was also quite impressed with the children who played young Cosette and Gavroche. And, the actress who played older Eponine. I wasn't quite as impressed with Russell Crowe. I thought his acting was fine, but he didn't seem to have quite as strong a voice. There were some notes/words I wanted him to hit strongly that he just didn't. He had one pretty strong hit on his very last word, but I thought there should have been some earlier than that, too. So basically, I thought he was good, but not great.

We liked some of the changes they made from the show that got closer to the book, including getting rid of the tattoo on his chest with his prison number (if that were the case, shouldn't they have known that the other guy was not Jean Valjean since he didn't have the tattoo? So, Valjean did not need to go to court and admit his identity?) and showing him meeting Fauchlevant (sp?) at the convent and then staying there with young Cosette for a while. We were a tad bummed that if anything they made Marius more likeable here than in the stage show (not that I didn't want to like Eddie Redmayne - I did!), but Marius was actually rather a jerk in the book and we thought maybe they'd show a little more of that.

Was that first scene an accurate depiction of how they got damaged ships into dry dock? Using hundreds(?) of prison slaves to drag it in??? I was quite struck by the scene and assume it could have been accurate - not sure how else they would have done it - but, wow! That looked miserable (pun fully intended).

I didn't cry as much as I thought I might - no tears actually fell down my face, but I certainly welled up multiple times. But, that's OK.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and I'm glad we went. :-D