Les Miserables (1995)

“I’ve got things to say that people would like to hear.” – Henri Fortin

Number of Times Seen – 1 (15 May 2018)

Brief Synopsis – On the eve of World War II, a French peasant’s life is affected by the famous story by Victor Hugo.

My Take on it – This is a film that I have been interested in seeing for quite a long time since I am a bit fan of the classic story by Victor Hugo but due to my aversion to watching foreign language films, I avoided it for way too long.

As I am trying to now expand my foreign language movie knowledge base, I decided to give this film a try.

The idea of updating the Hugo classic to World War II was such an interesting idea that I wondered how they were manage to do it because they seem so vastly different from one another.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, are considered timeless and can be set in just about any time period, but that isn’t always true of most classic literature.

They actually chose to do this in a very interesting fashion where the main story that happens around World War II only slightly touches upon characters and events of the original novel yet they have the main character imagine that he is Jean Valjean in the past.

The story is paced really well and despite being nearly 3 hours long, it moves along fluidly quite well and doesn’t feel as if it hits any lulls in the storyline and stays captivating and interesting the entire time.

This film won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign language film yet wasn’t eligible to even be nominated by the Academy for the Oscar in that category.

It manages to give us a new and invigorating tale that touches upon many of the ideas that make the classic Hugo story so fascinating.

Bottom Line – Great adaptation and re-imagining of the classic Hugo story. The idea to meld the famous story and have it occur during World War II seems like such a stretch yet it works really well.  The story moves along at a great pace and even with such a long running time, it doesn’t feel bogged down at all because it stays captivating the entire time.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Won Best Foreign Language Film at The Golden Globes. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10)

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z