I remember the musical on which this film is based as the best musical that I had seen on Broadway. Victor Hugo’s story was powerful, the singing superb and the acting believable. I felt deeply violated by the film adaptation of the musical.

Compared to such classic musical films as “My Fair Lady” or “The Sound of Music” the singing in Les Miserables is horrendously bad. The cast is filled with Hollywood stars who simply cannot sing. Because the story is almost exclusively narrated through singing and no dialogue fills in the story line to explain why characters act the way they do, even the narrative does not work well. It feels clumsy and staged. I felt miserable until the last 10 minutes when the film for the first time always allowed me to develop an emotional connection to the characters. Go see the original musical rather than this awful film adaptation.