




(Long story.) Hathaway looks happy enough channeling Liza Minnelli for her tremulous rendition of the Susan Boyle-appropriated anthem ”I Dreamed a Dream,” but that’s no doubt because she knows that soon after the song, she’s pretty much done for the night. (O, for Crowe’s costumed glory days in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World!) Jackman has a right to be cranky too, although he’s too much of a trouper to show it as he overemotes on demand and sings of finding God after he steals a pair of candlesticks from a nice priest. What’s left to learn is this: Les Misérables provides compelling reasons for Crowe to be peeved, beginning with the humiliation of having to sing Broadway-style, when it clearly is so not his thing, and ending with the Cap’n Crunch wardrobe into which the gentleman is packed. You’ve learned, from posters and trailers, that Hugh Jackman, as former convict Jean Valjean, looks impressively stricken and that Russell Crowe, as implacable police inspector Javert, looks disconcertingly dyspeptic. You probably already know that Anne Hathaway, as the wretched single mother-turned-prostitute Fantine, is reputedly a formidable Oscar favorite for her sobbing and warbling and haircutting-in-real-time. You may already know that to make his movie adaptation of the internationally popular theatrical musical conjured from the 19th-century political novel by Victor Hugo, director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) bade his actors sing live during filming. Since everything about Les Misérables is fortissimo - including but not limited to its unabashed pursuit of awards that are shiny or globular or both - you have perhaps already heard a little about the movie now storming the Bastille of your wallet.
