The film is a musical, it’s like an opera where not a word is spoken, everything is sang. Although being a musical it is indeed so sad as to be painful. So much, I could barely get through it once, not sure I could endure it again, but that’s just me, nothing to do with the film.
It’s very tragic. It’s the story of Valjean who went to prison because he stole some bread because his sister’s son was starving; he tried to escape so his five years became nineteen. When he was finally granted parole, he couldn’t find work anywhere, being an ex-convict. A priest offered him food and a place to rest, and he stole some silver from the church and ran away. Caught again, he was freed when the priest confirmed his lie that he had himself given him the silver, and actually gives him some more, telling him to use it to make something of his life. He does. He changes his name and becomes a rather wealthy man, and he’s mayor when he meets Javert again.
Fantine works for him. She has been seduced and abandoned with a child, and she left the little girl with the Thénardier couple, working to pay them for her care. When it’s found out that she has a child without having been married, she’s fired, and Valjean is so worried about Javert that he doesn’t even notice her. She has nothing, and she desperately needs money for her daughter - not knowing that the Thénardiers are lowlives who take advantage of her, asking for money but treating the girl like a slave - so she falls into a miserable life, selling her hair, her teeth, and her body. When she reacts to a rough ‘client’, Javert wants to arrest her, but Valjean recognizes her face and wants to take her to a hospital. Fantine is dying, and he promises her that he’ll look after her daughter Cosette, that she’ll be well, before she dies.
Javert strongly believes in the law, in following “the path of the righteous”, and reports himself to him, the Mayor, because he says he wronged him, reporting him as an old convict before finding out that a man believed to be Valjean has been arrested, thus tempting him for a moment, but Valjean can’t let a man go to prison to save his own life, so he confesses before running away.
He goes to take Cosette away with him, paying the Thénardier to let her go with him, and is able to escape from Javert thanks to the help of a grateful man whose life was once saved by Valjean.
He raises Cosette as his own, and we meet them again some years later (maybe nine or ten?), when she’s now a young woman who falls in love with someone met on the street: Marius.
Marius and his student friends are fighting for their rights, their lives and for the People, but they’ll all be slaughtered by the police.
Seeing Javert around (what a small world Valjean lives in) he worries that he might find him again and wants to flee with Cosette, but she’s in love now and doesn’t want to, and writes a letter to Marius.
Éponine is the Thénardier’s daughter and yet she’s a better person than them, she loves Marius so much and would do anything for him, and she finds Cosette’s house for him and then prevents her parents from robbing it, and eventually takes the letter that she wrote. It is so very painful for her, she doesn’t give the letter right away, but she saves Marius life at the barricade they made out of furniture, and right before dying in his arms she gives him the letter.
He sends a reply via a small boy, Gavroche, who leaves it with Valjean. He reads it and is heartbroken to realize that he’s about to lose her, he loves her very much, and he worries what kind of person he is and also that he might die in the fight, so he goes there himself, to find that Javert has been taken prisoner, who had infiltrated as a spy and being recognized by Gavroche. Valjean asks to be given the prisoner so to deal with him himself, and then he lets him go free without conditions, knowing very well that he’ll chase him again but not blaming him for doing his work.
When Marius is injured, he takes him away from the fight and escapes through the sewers carrying him on his shoulder. He meets Thénardier who steals Marius’ ring, then he sees Javert waiting for him, and asks him for the time to take Marius to a hospital or he’ll die. Javert says ‘another step and you die’ but then is unable to shoot him. He is conflicted between his duty and his obedience to the law and the fact that Valjean granted him his life instead of killing him saving his own. He thinks that he can’t do his job properly anymore and throws himself in the river to die.
Marius marries Cosette, but then Valjean confesses to him that he’s wanted by Javert for stealing, and says that he must go away because if he’s caught she’ll be disgraced, and Marius agrees with him.
When the Thénardier try to blackmail him, asking money or they’ll reveal that Valjean killed a man and threaten to say where he is, even producing the ring as proof of what he’s saying, Marius recognizes the ring and realizes that Valjean saved his life and that he misjudged him, and gets out of Thénardier the location of where he can now find him.
Valjean is in a convent, about to die, and they arrive in time to say goodbye. He has a letter of confession prepared for them, and Marius tells a crying Cosette that her ‘father’ is a saint, that he saved his life. Valjean dies glad that he could see his precious Cosette one last time, and his soul goes away with Fantine.
So tragic, what Valjean and Fantine went through all their lives, it’s so heartbreaking, and the ending is too. Maybe it’s supposed to be a positive ending, because Marius and Cosette are together and will live a better life, but I only felt the pain. All the students who died, Gavroche, Éponine.. it’s all so sad, and I admit I was unable to accept that through all this, all that those good people went through, the Thénardier still managed to keep on, free, no matter that the way they were played and written in this movie they were almost comical. It’s indeed very realistic but so hard to accept that Valjean was chased all his life while they kept on stealing every day and were never caught.
The movie was done brilliantly though, every shot was like a painting, the lights made an amazing atmosphere, every picture was worth hanging on a wall, and Éponine’s song was great, so sad and so touching, and Gavroche’s death was powerful as well, this child facing alone the soldiers, and the song ‘do you hear the people sing’ without music was powerful as well, and every scene I thought was done very very well. Gavroche’s actor was very good, but he sang with such a strong accent :-p
Javert-Russell Crowe
Fantine-Anne Hathaway
Cosette-Amanda Seyfried
Marius-Eddie Redmayne
Enjolras-Aaron Tveit
Éponine-Samantha Barks
Gavroche-Daniel Huttlestone
Young Cosette-Isabelle Allen
Thénardier-Sacha Baron Cohen
M.me Thénardier-Helena Bonham Carter
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