Miserables

Les Misérables

More than just a typically stilted musical in a period setting, and certainly better than Tim Burton’s black comedy horror Sweeney Todd (which also featured the always wonderful Helena Bonham Carter), this is a grandly cinematic adventure, a saga of surviving the hardships of poverty and finding a heart-warming redemption in coldly unsympathetic society of 19th century France. Russell Crowe is a sturdy presence as Javert, even when he’s not on-screen, and there is a great supporting performance from the talented Anne Hathaway as Fantine, easily vaulting far higher (like Catwoman meets Wolverine!), from the emotional depths of her blameless downfall than the lesser scales attained by Hugh Jackman’s weaker voice and acting ability as Valjean. Amanda Seyfried’s typical spectacularly-elfin glamour is subdued for her pivotal role as Cosette as “the pain goes on and on” for broken lives and failures in this longwinded retelling of an already familiar story of tragedy and misery. But, at the end of the day, I must admit that Billie August’s 1998 version, played - much less hysterically - as straightforward historical crime drama, remains a superior entertainment. The blu-ray is out now, and it looks and sounds great.

Best foreign film

Told in flashbacks, Oscar-winning Argentinean crime drama The Secret In Their Eyes concerns a retired judge, Espósito, writing a novel about an actual rape and murder case - one that he believed sent the wrong culprits to prison, two men who were framed by a corrupt authority for the sake of legal expediency. Haunted by the outcome of this ‘Morales case’, Espósito re-opens investigations to expose the injustice, and convict the real killer. 

Director Juan José Campanella maintains a fluidity of pacing in the unfolding narrative that most clearly resembles a superior TV movie, but its genre elements are too few for any serious consideration as horror or thriller, despite fine performances from the main cast in an intriguing mystery storyline, and some romantic complications of the protagonist’s life, which broaden the film’s appeal.