“Occupy the Oscars!” Tom Hooper’s movie of the British staging of the French musical of the 1862 Hugo novel is a must-see for anyone who appreciates epic stories, contemporary musicals or well-crafted cinema in general. Warning for those who are not already fans of the musical: some effort is required to enjoy this masterpiece, not unlike the attention needed for a screening of Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, but still much less than a classical opera.

Hooper has chosen a straight up-and-down adaptation, with the only risk he’s taken to have the actors sing “in scene” (not lip-synched). In general this works well, but the trade-off is that the soundtrack will not be a perfect concert-hall recording – though combined with the excellent on-screen acting and cinematography, it’s suitably epic and powerful. Anne Hathaway’s Fantine is deserving of a Best Supporting Actress gong on the strength of her show-stopping solo. Hugh Jackman’s Valjean is a solid contender for Best Actor, and newcomer Eddie Redmayne’s Marius impresses. On the other hand, Russell Crowe’s Javert is merely serviceable. And Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter’s comic Thénardiers were unexpectedly understated.

My only (admittedly minor) quibbles are that Hooper could have taken more creative risks. E.g. musically, Samantha Bark’s Eponine numbers might have gone more jazzy/soul, and the requisite new-song-for-the-film ‘Suddenly’ sounds manufactured for a Best Original Song nod by taking inspiration from past syrupy Disney/Pixar winners. On the staging front, they could have changed up on the repeated close-ups of every soloist’s tonsils (yes we get it, they’re not lip-synching), and the entr’acte CGI tracking shots up into the air and down again.

Hooper uses the film medium to try to string together more of the (very dense) story from the original novel, with somewhat more success in the first half. ** Spoiler Alerts ** Interestingly he still went with the stage musical version for some pivotal moments, e.g. Fantine still dies in hope that Cosette will be cared for (vs. Hugo’s bleaker scene). And key plot points in the ending still don’t hang together that well (they were problems with the novel and musical also, in Hooper’s defence), e.g. why does Marius accept Valjean’s slipping away quietly only to change his mind when he finds out Valjean had saved him, and how does Valjean go from being healthy and fit to suddenly on his deathbed?

Critique aside, the facts still remain that: (1) Les Misérables is one of the world’s great novels, dealing with the grand themes of redemption, love, loss, death, poverty and social justice imho better than the Bible, e.g. the parable of the Prodigal Son is brought to life by Valjean (the prodigal), Javert (the elder son) and their contrasting responses to redemptive forgiveness; (2) in 100 years the Boublil-Schönberg musical will be looked upon as a classic, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the operas of Mozart or Wagner; and (3) Hooper’s film is a worthy homage to both.

From the preamble to the 1887 translation: “So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century – the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light – are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world; in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books [and musicals and movies] of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use.”