Sunday 13 January 2013

A Banner May Advance

Okay, I'm going to clear this up right off the bat: anyone who is thinking about proposing to me had better be Eddie Redmayne, otherwise it's pretty unlikely that I'll say yes. Eddie Redmayne, if you're reading this, you will find me at 55 Rue Plumet (points to anyone who gets this without Groogling it).

As you may have guessed from my concise introduction, I'M REVIEWING LES MISÉRABLES. I'm doing this because I bloody love musicals, so it will obviously be completely unbiased.



I REALLY LOVED THIS FILM FOR ALL OF THE REASONS. That's about all you need to know. However, I'll pick out some of my most favourite bits to encourage you to see it too.

1) IT'S A MOVIE MUSICAL OF THE STAGE SHOW "LES MISÉRABLES". This means it's automatically awesome. For anyone that doesn't know, Les Misérables is a stage musical in which many people are miserable. They sing about their enveloping misery with a tremulous consistency. Most of them (spoiler alert) die.

2) All the actors sing live. This means you really feel them feeling the songs. It also means that you get to see the beautiful, weaving patterns of their veins under their skin as they strive to hold the long, hard notes.



3) Eddie Redmayne having his sweet-ass face and hot posh-boy bod all up in Revolutionary France's face. (NB, terms like "sweet-ass face" and "hot posh-boy bod" generally do not enter my vocabulary, but Eddie, if  because you're reading this, I just want to impress you loads, and this is a trendy way to speak.)



4) I'll only mention it briefly and I'll veil it in a tight code, but THAT rendition of THAT song WAS extremely good. Anne Hathaway can really turn up the pain when she wants to #Oscarinthebag #unbreakablecode. I did however feel a *bit* sorry for Samantha Barks, whose rainy wailings through the streets of down town Paris paled in comparison to their emotional forerunner. But only a bit sorry...I still remember finding Samantha Barks really irritating on the BBC reality TV show "I'd Do Anything" a few years back. Yeah, Samantha, some of us never forget.

5) Anne Hathaway's emotional journey. She's come a real long way since the Princess Diaries, but I'd wager Julie Andrews taught her everything she knows. Here's a photograph of her singing her wonderful version of I Dreamed a Dream:



6) Lovely lil' cameo from a total legend...and no, I won't spoiler this one. But it really did please me NO END.

Obviously, nothing is perfect (except Eddie Redmayne's totes gorge eyeballs, amaright? (NB, the phrase "totes gorge" just made me sick up my Whispa Gold...)), so here are the very few things I didn't like about the film.

1) Russell Crowe. Okay, okay, he really wasn't as bad as I thought he would be and imo, no one can do Stars the same justice Philip Quast did it. However, he was still less than zero.

2) Hugh Jackman. Yeah, I'm sure you're all like OMMMMMMG, and I can totally admit his acting was fantastic. Jean Valjean, however, he is not. But who else were they going to get to put on their big ol' bus posters?

3) Amanda Seyfried kissing Eddie Redmayne. But whatevz.

Aaaaaaaand that's my review. I give this film 86 hearts full of love out of 47 beggars at the feast.