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Les Miserables

1998, Movie, PG-13, 129 mins

Les Miserables: Review

LES MISERABLES
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An honorable and well-acted version of Victor Hugo's classic book bag-buster (not the Broadway musical), a sprawling melodrama whose prodigious length and scope have bedeviled all previous adaptations and hang heavily over this one as well. Rafael YIglesias' screenplay pares down the novel's subplots to concentrate on the iconic story of convict Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson), condemned to 20 years of back- and spirit-breaking incarceration for a minor crime and persecuted by the implacable Inspector Javert (Geoffrey Rush). Illiterate and brutalized by 19 years of imprisonment, Valjean is paroled but can't find work because his papers brand him a thief. An elderly cleric's act of charity allows Valjean to make a fresh start in Vigau, and in 10 years he rises from laborer to factory owner, establishing such a reputation as a fair employer and pious citizen that the townspeople virtually force him to become mayor. He also cares for Fantine (Uma Thurman), a prostitute supporting an illegitimate child, and promises that he'll raise her daughter Cosette (Claire Danes). But cruel coincidence brings Valjean to Javert's attention, and the policeman dedicates himself to proving that the mayor and the convict who broke parole a decade earlier are the same man. The fact is, there's too much of Les Miserables to fit into a feature running time, even a longish 129 minutes. But pruning back the story necessitates a series of choppy transitions of the "Ten Years Later" variety: If ever a novel cried out for miniseries treatment, it's this one. The film's performances are its greatest asset: Neeson's Valjean is a self-made man of honor who must be ever on guard against the return of the beast within, while Rush plays Javert as a religious zealot whose god is the law. Though the words "filthy rags" must loom large in any discussion of Thurman's wardrobe as the bedraggled Fantine, the urge to make them bust-baring appears to have been irresistible. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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