Les Miserables...Larger Than Life

Les Miserables...larger than life - brad howell

I had the great opportunity to take in Les Miserables on Christmas Day. What an experience...at least I knew what I was in for. Others we brought with us...well, not so much.

Three minutes into the film, my sister leans over to me and asks if they will be singing the entire movie.

Yup, that's about how it works...sorry for the Wolverine bait and switch.

But as they say in the rest of the world, if not at least in France...C'est la vie!

A couple of decades ago I had seen the broadway style musical. Maybe it was my youth or maybe it was because all that I could afford was the cheap seats in the nose bleed section, but for the whole thing, I never knew what was going on. For all of these years I thought the good guys won. Didn't they in history?

The only thing I knew with any certainty was that things truly were miserable. Miserable for the hero...miserable for me...

For those of us that are theater challenged, the story line in the movie production is far easier to track. This truly is a good thing. But the movie version is far more gut wrenching. Its gritty, difficult at times to watch, and personally walks you through a truly horrible world experience. As for the singing...well its better than Momma Mia and if you can get past that every phrase is a lyric, the movie is well worth the extraordinarily long sit through.

Just remember the popcorn so you can blame tearing up on the salt...