# Misérables, Les (1998)

### reviewed by
Michael Dequina

Les Miserables (PG-13) *** (out of ****)

The calendar year has not even reached its midway point, but that hasn't prevented Columbia Pictures from trotting out a lavish period drama more befitting of the winter Oscar-bait season. Bille August's high-profile adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic Les Miserables delivers everything one would expect from a classy Hollywood epic--handsome production values, strong performances by a top-notch cast, a literate screenplay--with one critically missing element: emotional sweep.

For those not familiar with Hugo's original novel or the hit stage musical it inspired, the hook of Les Miserables essentially boils down to something like a 19th-century French-set version of The Fugitive. After serving 19 years in a prison work camp for stealing a loaf of bread, the brutish Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson) is paroled. Immediately upon release, he steals valuable silverware from a kindly bishop who takes him in for a night; he is caught by authorities, only to be forgiven by the bishop, who lets Valjean keep the silver to start a new life on the straight and narrow. That he does, and in doing so breaks his parole, which sets the obsessively determined Inspector Javert (Geoffrey Rush), who was one of the guards in Valjean's prison camp, on his trail.

Thematically, however, Les Miserables is a story about redemption, which Valjean finds through his dealings with two women, the hard-luck factory-worker-turned-prostitute Fantine (Uma Thurman), and her illegitimate daughter, Cosette. Years after breaking parole, Valjean becomes mayor of the town of Vigau, where he forms a warm friendship with Fantine after saving her from an unjust arrest by Javert. Valjean promises the gravely ill Fantine he will rescue the young Cosette (Mimi Newman) from her cruel caretakers, the Thenardiers, and raise the child as his own. The "father" and "daughter" eventually land in Paris, where the teenage Cosette (Claire Danes) falls for dashing student revolutionary Marius (Hans Matheson).

The decades-spanning story is the stuff that cinematic epics are made of, and the Danish August turns in his most accomplished English-language work, following the underrated 1994 superstar soap The House of the Spirits and last year's stylish but highly preposterous mystery Smilla's Sense of Snow. He and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias bring the sprawling tale into clear focus and keep the events moving at a brisk pace. Production designer Anna Asp, costume designer Gabriella Pescucci, and cinematographer Jorgen Persson give Les Miserables a sumptuous period look whose accomplishment is mostly matched by the efforts of the cast. Neeson is commanding yet endearingly vulnerable; Rush's finely modulated menace is far more rewarding than his overrated, Oscar-winning theatrics in Shine; and Thurman disappears nicely into her highly unglamorous role. The younger members of the cast fare less well. Danes is convincing as Cosette, but her overdone lip quivering during her crying scenes becomes a distraction; and Matheson, while competent, is a less interesting Robert Sean Leonard.

As technically adept and cerebrally engaging the film is, by the time Les Miserables was over, my emotions had only been superficially involved. While I was touched by Valjean's relationships with Fantine and Cosette, I was not moved. Not even reaching the "touching" level is the Cosette-Marius pairing. My only previous experience with Les Miserables is with the musical (as I am sure many others' is), and I was dismayed to see Eponine, a friend of Marius's who selflessly dies in the name of her unspoken love for him, almost completely jettisoned from this adaptation (the daughter of the Thenardiers, here she is only briefly seen as a child). Her presence would have added some much-needed conflict and emotional heft to the youthful romance, but I suppose August and Yglesias felt one tragic heroine (Fantine) was enough.

Even so, as 1998 creeps into summer blockbuster season, Les Miserables is a thoughtful, well-made, entertaining film, one that will sate moviegoers hungry for a dose of drama before popcorn no-brainers invade the multiplex.

    Michael Dequina
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