LES MISERABLES, starring Hugh Jackman

The theater was crowded, and I was stuck sitting by two little girls whose mother (she sat in the row ahead) did not turn around (as I would have done) to tell them not to watch horribly violent previews. Probably because she was texting and trying to quiet the baby at the same time.

Still, I enjoyed the movie, though I continually worried about the little girls—lots of violence, including the shooting of little Gavroche and the mess in the sewer.

Too, toward the end, when Marius sings “empty tables, empty chairs,” and laments the dying of the children, and I was still sitting by a sweet little six-year-old with shiny boots that lit up when she knocked them together, I was almost unable to breathe, so immediate was the sense of what happened those few awful days ago.

I was concerned that I wouldn’t like Anne Hathaway, because I don’t like Anne Hathaway. However, she gives a remarkable performance, her singing lovely, passionate, raw.

Mr. Jackman as Jean Valjean obviously holds the film together, and his singing voice is certainly listenable. Less easy to enjoy is Russell Crowe’s singing, which is all one big forte with no finesse and no variation, but then, Javert never has finesse or variation, so perhaps that was the correct way to approach the part, but it grated on me after a while.

Marius is adorable and sings beautifully, but I was a tiny bit annoyed by the way his lower jaw moves along with his vibrato, a trait often seen on Sunday mornings, and which is probably not out of place in the sanctuary, but struck me as odd behind the barricade.

I am probably the only person in the world who hadn’t seen the play, and I am a tiny bit ashamed to say that I was put off by the amount of singing—I looked forward to seeing a Sound of Music type musical, where most of the dialogue is spoken, but then occasionally (as when one doesn’t know what to do with Maria) emotion overtops someone and she breaks into song. Here, a great deal of the dialogue is sung, and, at the beginning, it is all sung, so that I was afraid I had stumbled into a latter-day opera by mistake.

I didn’t know any of the songs other than the one I heard once upon a time on Britain’s Got Talent. It was done much better here, I’m happy to say.

Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thenardier is brilliant. Having seen Ms. Bonham Carter as an ape, a witch, a toothpaste factory worker’s wife, and a queen, seeing her as a cruel buffoon (maritally shackled to the odious Baron Cohen, if I may speak plainly) was something else. One can’t help but wonder what she and Mr. Burton talk about in the quiet evenings after the children have gone to bed, but “bizarre parts Helena gets to play” must be among the topics.

Please don’t take children to this. There is a scene with a bunch of sad, used prostitutes in which Fantine (to be blunt) turns a trick. There is another scene where Father Christmas is roughly handled (shall we say) by a rather energetic young woman.

A poignant moment occurs in the rain when Eponine Thenardier (Samantha Barks) realizes that Marius will never love her, except when she’s alone with her thoughts, now that he has met Cosette. That sad moment when a young woman realizes she cannot have what she cannot have…

A lovely movie all in all. The music is wow, especially the big crowd pieces about poor people and angry men. Lots of touching moments.

I like the Liam Neeson version better, because there’s no singing, there’s more story, no one has sex with Santa Claus, and there’s Geoffrey Rush, but this one is also great. Just sit a little farther away from the woman who brings four little children. I would have moved, but the theater was jam-packed.

Sadly, no one will ever read the book (which is magnificent) ever again because of having seen one or more of the movie adaptations, but at least the movies show the good bits–the self-sacrifice, the toiling for truth and justice and liberty, the loveliness of first true love…and the fact that our Revolution was way better done, but that may be an uncalled-for observation.

Lots and lots of Oscar nominations will be forthcoming: certainly for Mr. Jackman, Ms. Hathaway, the music, the costumes, and art direction, for starters.