Daniel Pole

The movie version is a grave disappointment, with flashes of brilliant casting interspersed with ridiculous and ill-suited pairings. Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway shine. Russell Crowe and Sacha Baron Cohen are inexplicably badly cast. Crowe cannot sing, and Javert’s role is the strongest in the play, and Thenardier is supposed to be a former soldier representing human baseless who runs as a theme through the story. The original musical captured well the essence of the Victor Hugo novel, that of the concept of redemption. To carry that into the movie, the role of Javert had to be understood as representative of the view that a sinner is eternally condemned, and the role of Valjean proves by his growing realization that acts of love and kindness can be transformative, until the musical and the book unite in the epiphany that “to love another person is to see the face of God”. While Jackman sees that, Crowe seems to be caught up in some other adventure movie. The comic relief of Thenardier is, it is true, a digression from the book but needed for the audience to take a breath. On the stage that works because it is a bawdy, fun dong and contrasts the coarseness of everyday life with the previous scenes of high moral drama, but in the movie Cohen turns it into a smutty slapstick routine that is neither funny nor musical. My recommendation is to save your money and see it on stage. Even a poor stage production eclipses the movie. Thanks to Jackman and Hathaway for transcendent performances. Shame for Crowe and Cohen for missing the point of their roles.