Movie Review: Les Miserables. Otherwise known as the Depression Creator

There is a good reason why this musical is called Les Miserables. And that reason is because, at any point throughout the film, you can find someone in the theater broken down into tears. Usually those are people like me, people who can literally cry at any movie they see, any book they read, or just a sad or even happy moment. Then again, there is hardly a happy moment in this entire show (I call it a show instead of a movie right here cause the same thing happens to me while watching a theater production).

Even during moments that are supposed to be happy, such as Marius and Cosette falling in love, an eerie fog of despair lingers. Instead of cheering for these lovebirds, the audience is crying along with Eponine, magically brought to life by Samantha Barks, as she sings “On My Own,” the friendzone anthem.

Don’t let my venting about the sadness make you think I didn’t care for this movie. Completely the opposite: I adored it. Only a great film is able to make an audience care so much about the characters involved that they can make adults cry or at least tear up nonstop throughout. The acting was superb. If Anne Hathaway doesn’t win every award, I will punch out all who voted. And Hugh Jackman seriously brought his a-game. Even Russell Crowe, clearly not the best singer of the production, brought so much heart and soul into Javert that at parts, it was hard to remember why I was supposed to hate him. Some of the performances that really stood out were the newcomers. Namely, I mean Barks, Eddie Redmayne as Marius, and Aaron Tveit as Enjolras. These guys can sing. Tveit especially stood out vocally amongst the other men in this film. I was a fan of his before but now…. woah. Redmayne brought so much compassion and love into Marius, I’m pretty sure every woman in the theater fell in love with him. And his fabulous hair didn’t hurt.

Bottom line: Utterly depressing, but full of such memorable and beautiful performances that I would be happy to watch and cry over it many times in the future.

Grade: A-