Les Miserables (2012) Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway

Les Miserables (2012) Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe

Rated PG-13 for suggestive and sexual material, violence and thematic elements

The message of the story of Les Miserables is not hidden, and it has really been talked about over the decades. Les Miserables is a story of redemption, of misguidance and redirection, of God’s hand moving us. It’s all been said. 

So in reviewing the movie of Les Miserables released this year, what I really wanted to do is to focus on the one aspect that makes the movie different from the Broadway productions.   If you want to know “Does the movie do justice to the Broadway Musical?” or “Could the movie have been made better if the singers had been better?” or “Why did they cut this part of the story? That was my favorite part!” you may have to find another reviewer.   I have opinions about these things, but I’m not going to talk about them here.

My Crosses in the Window Panes opinion about the 2013 musical movie Les Miserables focuses on only one aspect of the movie that could not have been done on a Broadway stage.  

Jean Valjean has just realized that his freedom could be ensured for the rest of his life. Javert has found someone to arrest for Valjean’s crimes. Javert himself is convinced that the man he has in custody is, in fact, Valjean. He has apologized to the man he knows as The Mayor for even thinking that he might have been Jean Valjean. 

                                  Why should I save his hide? Why should I right this wrong? 

                                 When I have come so far? And struggled for so long?

Hugh Jackman, unlike all of the other Valjeans that have ever sung the song “Who am I?” goes into a quiet room, looks in a mirror, and whispers the lyrics that have been belted across stages all over the world. 

                                  “Who am I? Can I condemn this man to slavery? 

                                   Pretend I do not see his agony?”

It’s a beautiful piece of music. It is one of several times that Valjean sings his questions about his life to God and, through the course of a song, comes to a conclusion about the answers. He is almost always alone on stage, facing a packed audience who jumps to their feet and cheer when the song concludes.

But in this film release, it is just Hugh Jackman and his mirror.

                                  “How can I ever face my fellow men?  

                                    How can I ever face myself again?”

The truth about these moments is that they happen to us out here, in the real world. Moments when we realize, “the decision I am about to make, the line I am thinking of crossing, will utterly define me.”  We justify. We explain. We toss and turn. We go back and forth.  But for the most part, we do it privately.   

We want to have an audience when we decide to do the right thing, even when it is the hard thing. Especially when it is the hard thing.  We want to have an audience stand up and cheer for us when we refuse to cross a line… when we step forward and take responsibility for something we could have gotten away with… when we stand up for someone, and take ourselves down in the process.  We want to have an audience jump and give us a standing ovation. Because that, at least, would make us feel rewarded for choosing to do right.

But Valjean’s character did not have that.  He fought that battle in private. Just him and God.  Just like we do.   In the book, and in the movie, there was no audience.  He was not rewarded with a standing ovation for admitting that he was a fraud, a criminal who had duped the whole town into respecting him.  He was run out of town, fighting for his life, by a man who was finally justified in hating him. And other than that, people went on with their lives.

                                       “My soul belongs to God, I know. 

                                          I made that bargain long ago. 

                                        He gave me hope when hope was gone. 

                                        He gave me strength to journey on...”

Don’t get me wrong.  I have been listening to Colm Wilkinson as Valjean sing out those five glorious numbers since my sophomore year in high school.  I thought Alfie Boe was going to shatter windows. I let John Owen Jones break my heart over and over again on Youtube.  And when I sing along, I don’t whisper.

But when I fight my battles with myself, make choices that will determine my place in the plan, plead with God to be understanding until I am sure that He and I both know I’m doing the wrong thing and change my mind (or sometimes don’t), when I do that, I do it alone, just myself, my mirror and my God.  If I choose to do the right thing, I step forward into that decision with no fanfare, no overture, no audience, no ovation. 

I appreciate that the director chose to let us see that, sacrificing the musicality of that moment for its true soulfulness. 

Now… here’s the other side of that story, the truth that we often forget.  We don’t do anything alone. We don’t do anything without an audience. 

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

When we are facing those battles, us and our mirrors, and we win, I think it is not a bad thing to imagine the standing ovation from our cloud of witnesses.