It's 19th-century France and Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is the mayor of a town in which he has promised a woman on her deathbed, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), that he will take care of her daughter. Valjean has been hiding from the ruthless Javert (Russell Crowe) after breaking parole and must remain in hiding from him throughout the story. Valjean's daughter, Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) grows older and falls in love with a man involved in the French Revolution named Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and Valjean suddenly finds himself involved in keeping the boy safe through the course of battle. Please accept this as only a brief summary of the whole movie and in in no way can it truly depict the beauty and gripping passion this movie shows. The story revolves around Jean Valjean who is a man that makes great changes to his life and becomes the hero to those in his town, especially Fantine who has worked as a seamstress then finds herself jobless when news of her child comes to her boss. Fantine then must sell all of her to pay for her child (Isabelle Allen) who lives with two swindlers, Thenardier and Madame Thenardier (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter).
Anne Hathaway's performance of Fantine is outstanding. Hathaway sells herself to this role and gives all she can. Watching her sing “I Dreamed a Dream” will bring tears to your eyes and sets the mood for the rest of the movie. Few times has there been an actor or actress that can be as convincing and believable as Hathaway in this role. She deserves every credit she receives from this movie and more. The same goes for the rest of the cast. They performed so well with each other and had you in their clasp from the opening scene. They were not actors, they were the characters. Hugh Jackman was at his best and tops his roles played so far. One that certainly deserves special mention is Isabelle Allen who played the young Cosette. I have scene many child performers but few have been able to hold a candle to the performance that Isabelle gives. Such talent at young age is a wonderful thing and will be exciting to watch as she gets older, watching her in the different roles she will undoubtedly have. Director Tom Hooper has outdone himself with this movie in every aspect; except for his choice in Russell Crowe for Javert. Crowe's performance was mediocre at best and his vocal talent was harldy passing. The one saving grace for him was that the vocals for this movie were all live and recorded while being filmed, so what you see is real and was not fixed in the ways most actors voices are in musicals. This is a movie you'll want to watch again and again!
Rating: ****
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