Les Miserables Movie Liam Neeson -

Why? Because August and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias were making a character thriller, not a historical epic. By erasing Enjolras and the revolutionaries, they remove Hugo’s argument about social progress. In the book, Valjean saves Marius because Marius represents the future. In the film, Valjean saves Marius because he loves Cosette. The scope shrinks from “the welfare of all mankind” to “the safety of one family.” This makes the film leaner, but colder. You leave the movie feeling that Valjean has won a private battle, not that the world has moved an inch toward justice. Is the 1998 Les Misérables better than the musical? No. The musical has the soul of the crowd. But the Neeson version is superior in one crucial way: it understands obsession. The musical gives us the soaring lament of “Stars.” This film gives us Geoffrey Rush’s face as he sniffs the air, realizing his prey is close.

Watch Rush’s eyes during the scene at the factory. He doesn’t arrest Fantine with bureaucratic coldness; he dismisses her with a sneer of biological disgust. His Javert is a Social Darwinist. He believes that criminals are born, not made. When Valjean the ex-convict becomes Valjean the mayor, Javert’s mind breaks because it violates the immutable hierarchy of the universe. The famous suicide at the Seine is handled masterfully: Rush doesn't look sad; he looks like a man watching gravity reverse. His Javert doesn’t die from a crisis of conscience—he dies because the evidence of his eyes (a convict doing good) disproves the logic of his entire life. For all its psychological prowess, the 1998 film has a fatal flaw that prevents it from being a masterpiece: it is terrified of the revolution. les miserables movie liam neeson

In an act of narrative surgery that still baffles fans, the film almost completely removes the student uprising at the barricade. Marius (Hans Matheson) is reduced to a bland romantic lead. Gavroche is barely a cameo. The political heart of the story—the doomed fight for liberty—is replaced with a generic chase through sewers. In the book, Valjean saves Marius because Marius