About Those Miserables
Post 628:
Hello to my extremely exclusive but highly urbane and debonair audience. Today we delve into the PBS version of Les Misérables. Yes, I’m late with this one. Right off, I will not be breaking with my protocols. The following will be a highlight of the positive and a chance to talk about why certain things work. I like to keep it sunny, don’t you know, even when talking about the dumpster-fire lives of the characters in this adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic novel. Spoilers ahead…
I won’t prevaricate and say the book is one of my favorites, though I read it as a young man and was even dumber and less informed than I am now. While I’m sure you’re trying to imagine a person that void of intelligence, I bring it up only to say that it’s quite possible I missed a lot of what makes this such a powerful story. A re-reading is in my immediate future, as soon as I get done with the page-turning Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas. My finish date is scheduled for some time in the year 2045.
A little bit of the obvious out of the way. This is a miniseries. I watched it in two days, partially because I have obsessive disorders and the other part is because it’s really good. Another thing: Not a musical. Right there, it grabs a huge amount of points. Any TV show or film automatically earns an enormous bump for not being a musical. I tried to watch the latest Hollywood adaptation of The Miserables (sorry) and lasted not long. Because people were singing, mostly. I want my pain and suffering to be song free, thanks much, unless it’s country music from the 60s. Keep in mind that I’m mostly joking before you break out the pitchforks, but… keep in mind—the book was not a musical either. Unless I’m missing something. I miss things all the time.
The performances are generally fantastic. McNulty is a great Jean Valjean and Phil Collins is a wonderful Fantine. Javert is played masterfully. The only cast members that don’t kill it are in the second half, but I think this isn’t their fault. More of a plot thing.
Let me explain.
Once the scale of story gets ramped up and the populice of perpetually pissed Paris begin to rise, it starts to become slightly less interesting. I found myself in full immersion when it was basically a strangely obsessed jailor and policeman going out of his way to make McNulty’s life a total hell. The plight of Fantine is done right. Total suck fest. She’s left by some jacknut with a kid, taken advantage of by the evil innkeeper and his wife, and ultimately let down entirely by the world.
When it’s personal, focusing on these admittedly one-directional characters, the story works for me. I’m pushing aside the myriad plot conveniences, of which there are tons, because redemption, hatred, obsession, and struggle are huge characters in their own right, smacking the viewer in the face. It’s damn sad to imagine what a young lady and her daughter would do in the middle of an already poverty-stricken country, and the series pulls no punches in the telling of the tale. Just when things are looking up, well, you know…
We get a little hope at the end, though it comes at quite a cost. Jean Valjean ultimately does the right thing like he’s on repeat, saving the wimp that will marry his beloved Cosette.
So. Plotting and characters that are unbelievably just what you need them to be at the right moment? Yep. Hard for me to say this, but I don’t care. It played on my heart strings.
When it tried for social relevance on a scale grander than the main plot, the story flattens. This is a general rule of thumb for me. Big ideas like class and social ills are more poignant when depicted through a few characters, like the unjust suffering of Jean Valjean and Fantine. When it cuts to the group of dudes in a bar talking about their grievances, eh. It’s not because they don’t have a point. We simply don’t know them. They look like a bunch of college kids who think the king sucks and needs his medicine. I agree with them. The most American thing about me is that I think monarchs of all stripes suck. Even the ones with “the Great” after their name. Talk about needy.
It’s hard for me to pinpoint what ultimately made me enjoy this version so much, but I think it’s the simplicity. McNulty is pissed and bitter, and then he’s not. Wronged and redeemed. Phil Collins is hopeful and pretty and bitterly disappointed, but her hopes live on through young Cosette. It’s epic stuff. Seems like they got the spirit of it right, and like I said, no one broke out in song. For those of you who think I am biased against musicals, I will be doing a twenty-part series on the Blues Brothers and why it’s the greatest piece of American art ever produced. Coming in 2046, just after I finish reading Les Misérables.
Cheers and see you after.
