29 thoughts on “The New, No-Singing Les Misérables

  1. As someone who loves Les Misérables (musical and original novel), this adaptation really doesn’t do it for me. I wanted to like it (especially since it’s so close to the book, plot-wise!), but there was something lacking emotionally for me. I think what really resonates with me in Les Mis is that it’s a story about mostly good people trying their best to get by in a cruel society, and some characters in the BBC version (particularly Valjean), felt too harsh and angry.

    I also didn’t love the costumes, or the production design as a whole. The costumes were very “meh” for me — I don’t like when everyone, regardless of social class, looks like they’re covered in a layer of ground-in dirt. Everything was too brown and beige and limp, and I could have done with some more color and some more interesting silhouettes, especially on Cosette. I also think I’m harsher on this production because I was watching it alongside Gentleman Jack, which has the most glorious 1830s costumes I’ve ever seen and takes place the same year as the barricades in Les Mis.

  2. I absolutely loved it. And I think the acting was fantastic, especially the two central parts. I’m not a fan of the musical, or the book, but this version really did it for me. Partly, because, as you say, it gives Fantine her due and shows how a girl could fall so easily. Olivia Coleman gave her usual amazing interpretation, she really does throw herself into a part.
    The costumes were great, apart from the floppy hair on Cosette.

    1. Over tea in central London, Davies tells me that he was surprised to discover that, in Hugo’s 1862 novel, neither character mentions any sort of sexual experience, leaving the 82-year-old screenwriter wondering, at least in the case of Javert, whether it was indicative of a latent homosexuality.

      “His obsession with Jean Valjean represents a kind of perverse, erotic love,” Davies says. He doesn’t stop there. In capturing the febrile atmosphere of post-Napoleonic France, he also shows how the innkeeper’s daughter Eponine (Erin Kellyman) expresses her desire for the earnest student Marius (Josh O’Connor).

      “One of the best things Hugo does is to have Eponine tease Marius with her sexiness because he is a bit of a prig,” says Davies. “So I have introduced a scene where Marius, even though he is in love with Cosette [Valjean’s adopted daughter], has a wet dream about Eponine and feels rather guilty about it. I think it fits into the psychology of the book.”

      https://bbclesmis.tumblr.com/post/181318148731/andrew-davies-on-les-miserables-im-rescuing-it

      And for all the emphasis on duty, redemption and love, he admits he did almost slip what could be described as a trademark Davies flourish into final scripts. “I did toy with the idea of letting Javert have loveless sex with a 50-year-old prostitute just as a matter of cleaning the pipes out, but I changed my mind. It seemed better to have him be purely dedicated to the job.”

      https://bbclesmis.tumblr.com/post/181454341751/andrew-davies-on-les-miserables-i-toyed-with-the

      1. Yuck. What a creepy prick. I can’t get over that “it fits into the psychology of the book.”. Such an ego with so little to back it up!

        Don’t forget the quote where he claims Les Mis still resonates today because… people sometimes don’t get to marry their first choice and gave to settle! Is he talking about Marius, who he made attracted to Eponine despite him being repelled by her in the book and single-mindedly obsessed with Cosette? Or maybe Cosette, I’m sure it’s quite possible to read some sort of Electra complex into her character and he seems obsessed with making all the relationships sexual.

        1. Thank you. He does sound creepy and like he sexualized relationships that shouldn’t have been sexualized. Idk why he would insist on doing that. It’s weird.

      2. Weird comments for an interview, but also interesting thoughts. I don’t see anything particularly wrong with them, not in a “how dare he!” type of way.

        1. I think the problem is two fold. He has weird and incorrect interpretations – Javert is not particularly obsessed with Valjean in the book, and Marius hardly considers Eponine female. He also thinks Valjean fancied Fantine iirc. People have made gay jokes about Valjean/Javert for years but the other interpretations are really strange, I can’t help but think he was inspired by how attractive Eponine is often cast in the musical. The second thing is that he considers (14 year old!) Eponine soliciting Marius on orders of her dad as teasing behavior, and frames her as sexy and not much else in the series… you don’t see a problem with that? Especially in a story that spends quite a chunk criticizing the mistreatment of women and how society thrusts them into bad circumstances only to dismiss them as “whores”? Then again from his interviews he doesn’t seem particularly interested in the social aspect of the story… only sex and hating on the musical. Not quite “how dare he” but he does seem like a foolish man.

        2. I actually don’t have a problem with Davies thinking these thoughts or even having the guts to mention them in interviews. We all have our quirks and our weird fantasies. My main complaint is that he seems to be losing the ability to adapt classic literature without adding lots of gratuitous titillation that has no basis in the source material. And then he wants to pass these adaptations off as “faithful.” I don’t think that this was as much of a problem with him in previous decades. What went wrong?

          The cast is excellent, at least. They deserved better material.

  3. We covered Les Mis in high school. The teacher gave us a bad abridged copy to read, leading me to assume for years that Fantine was a widow.

    Reading Kendra’s rant reminded me of the book “Charlotte Temple,” which I don’t think became a frock flick but should. She starts in a well to do family, but ends up in similar circumstances to Fantine here.

    I was also reminded of Amelia Dyer, Minnie Dean, Miyuki Ishikawa and other “baby farmers.”

  4. I have never loved you all more. Thank you so, so much for your ardent support of your fellow women, and for the context around why choice is so important.

    Also, thank you for the one shot of smoldering hot David Oyelowo. I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet – I’m hesitant because of the lack of singing, I’ll admit it – but this looks gorgeous, you may have changed my mind. Well, we do have a long weekend ahead, so I guess there’s time to binge while I’m in my sewing room …

  5. I saw the early episodes and while I enjoyed them on an acting level and how they portrayed Fantine, I really wanted scream at the jerk boyfriend or is it jerk manchild, YOU ALSO HAD SEX OUT OF WEDLOCK, SHE DIDN’T GET PREGNANT BY THE HS – MAN UP AND SUPPORT HER, YOU POOR EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING. (sorry for the rant)

    And beaucoup thanks for the support of women’s rights.

    Does anyone remember the LAW AND ORDER episode where Lieutenant Van Buren mentions how the right to life groups seem to vanish once the child is born?

    Also Cosette is a milquetoast. And Gentlemen Jack is mullions of times better. Ann Walker has reasons for her timidity and mild milquetoast tendencies. Cosette doesn’t. Unless being pure/innocent is one. Eponine is so much more.

    So I’ll watch it completely either in DVD or when PBS repeats.

    Hope Palais Galleria is open when you go to Paris.

    And I too adored Les Mis.

    1. Yes! I think about that L&O line All. The. Time. She said it off-hand but it was truth.

  6. I loved the fact that this story is so much closer to the book. The fact that there is “color blind” casting feels true to me. At this time how many people of color had fled back to France as they were trying to escape slavery in other areas or the horrific Haitian revolution 30 years before. The only character that makes me want to smack them is Cosette. She lived with the Thenardiers for 7 years and was used as a slave. She is not that innocent or unaware. It’s like she got stupid for no reason.

    1. In the book Cosette has only the vaguest recollections of her pre-convent childhood.

  7. I thought it was a very poor adaption and not accurate to the novel at all. I thought the casting was racist, as only the antagonists, servants and the now very-emphasised-that-she’s-a-sex-worker Eponine were non-white. I also found it creepy how the only two characters treated extensively with the male gaze were the younger generation’s teen female characters. No male gaze for Fantine?

    And you don’t mention it, but the costumes were very obviously inspired by? ripped-off from? the musical film.

    1. Oh, and this version of Marius is just as bad as Fantine’s lover so there’s nothing triumphant about the ending at all. They got very young looking pretty actresses for the female leads but not for Marius nor Enjolras, who were both cast too old. And what flat, traitless interpretations of these iconic characters, who are SO much more likable in the musical or book. If you can’t tell I hated this adaption for its wasted potential quite a bit. 😁

      1. Agree with everything you said. Marius is supposed to be the OPPOSITE of Felix Tholomyes (Fantine’s boyfriend), he’s described as pure and chaste. What a strange interpretation. I haven’t seen much discussion about the actual content of the series, only “no singing!” and buying into the “returning to the book” marketing.

  8. I read the novel (both in French and English) and always felt that Javert was the real tragic hero. He is not a villain; rather, he is a man so devoted to his duty that he is incapable of diverting from it, even in the case of other circumstances. For him, justice and the law are inseparable, and his inability to distinguish the two is why he kills himself in the end.

    And I think it’s a shame that we have to use the term “non-singing” to distinguish a straightforward adaptation of Hugo’s novel. It’s like folks whose only knowledge of Broadway plays is based on the film versions, with no awareness of the original stage plays and their casts.

  9. Re: Javert. When a man looks that good in 19th c. dress who cares about his skin color?

  10. I wasn’t crazy about this adaptation – I can’t pinpoint exactly why because I like the actor choices and it was pretty true to the book which is always a good thing! Something about it just didn’t make me feel that much for the characters unfortunately but I totally agree with your views on the costuming. I think it was really well done overall and felt much more historically accurate than the terrible movie version! Great post!

  11. I read the book so I know poor Fantine sells her teeth to a “dentist” who wants to use them to make dentures. This was so she could pay for medicine for Cozette. (Which was a lie from the Theardieners that Cozette was sick to get money from her making it even more tragic.)

    But there has never been an adaptation that showed her teeth being taken out. Just her cutting her hair to sell it, even in the theater versions.

    So with that said, is anyone else completely TRAUMATIZED but the photo of Lily Collins with the bloody mouth?!?!?! Holy cow!!! There are scars on my soul.

  12. I loved the first few episodes. I loved the Fantine story arc and the costumes she wore after she became the mistress of that rich student were gorgeous. By the time she was dying she was completely unrecognizable. The transformation was astounding. But as soon as that sniveling, senseless, selfish Cosette came on the screen, it was like…ugh. Idc HOW in love Cosette was with Marius, I doubt she would run out into the street to go look for him JUST as French soldiers on a mission to put down a rebellion passed her . She was constantly fainting for no reason and acting like an airhead…was that supposed to make her endearing? I liked the Cosettes from the 1998 & 2012 films better.

  13. The only part I liked about this is the Fantine arc and the ending. That scene where she is being raped by the soldiers under the bridge does still traumatize me whenever I remember it, plus the implied fact that the doll Valjean gave to little Cosette has Fantine’s hair makes me shudder. I agree with some people here that the costumes looks similar to the Tom Hooper film version (which by the way has a scene in which Fantine sells her teeth), which leads me to assume that the visuals are partly inspired by that film, especially that they made Fantine a brunette, who was a blonde in the book (she was described as having her dowry as the gold in her hair and pearls in her mouth). The ending was bleak which was fitting with the whole miserable people plot line, that even though all the character’s plot had their closure, social injustice still prevails in society, as symbolized by the young boys that Gavrouche met, who are begging in the streets.

  14. Necessary disclaimer: haven’t seen this series yet, but thanks for the screencaps and commentary–especially tying it to women’s reproductive rights today. That said, I’m a huge fan of the original novel and I will defend Cosette to my last breath; it’s a shame the musical (and from your description, I’m assuming this series as well?) waters down a lot of her personality, since you get a great sense both of how important it is that she retains her kindness in the face of her constant childhood traumas and that she reflects that same kindness in her actions–while she loves fashion, she prioritizes charity and caring about those who weren’t lucky enough to escape poverty the way she did, and she actually forces Valjean to take care of himself and shows how much she loves him, to the point that his angst over her relationship with Marius makes a lot more sense when you realize how Valjean and Cosette have really been each other’s sole family for so long. Plus the book made a point of the fact that Mme. Thernardier made Eponine and Cosette internalize the idea that Eponine was inherently better than Cosette because of her legitimate birth and relatively higher social class, and was therefore destined for wealth and true love (a thought process straight out of contemporary romantic literature). So then Cosette’s fateful adoption and the near-coincidental downfall of her abusers, plus the fact that Cosette is in fact never recognized as part of a superior class or particularly pretty (which: future adaptations, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS) is a very cool subversion of all those narrative tropes. All that plus her continued love for humanity in the face of all she’s lost really does make her a great symbol of the story’s central themes and what Hugo wanted people to take away from the novel. I still love my girl Eponine, too, but I know the musical especially downplayed her sharper, more flawed actions/characterization, which is a real shame.

    1. Andrew Davies said that she was an awful character in the book who contributed nothing and that he was going to make her “strong and optimistic” (because “optimistic” isn’t her main character trait in the book or anything). Proceeded to make her only care about her boyfriend, hate on convicts and be inherently beautiful and pure. Oh and she faints a lot and runs outside hysterically during an insurrection, such agency! Ultimately she ends up as I suppose the second choice of Marius, who in this version now has wet dreams about and spies on Eponine, who now has tonnes of sex appeal, because prematurely aged street urchins = Hot Stuff?

      He (Davies) chose to make Eponine sexually manipulative and Cosette only a target of desire, having no sexual feelings of her own, and basically morphs them into Marius’ choice of fuckable whore or marriagable virgin. How someone can read the book and get to THAT I have no clue, which is why I think he probably was inspired by the musical he apparently despises. The lady doth protest…

      Anyway, from the point of view of someone who watched it having read the book recently, this version really does wrong by the younger generation characters.

      1. My groans increased with every additional sentence of that description. Maybe one day some brave soul will give these characters the respect they deserve!

  15. I loved the new Les Miserables. It inspired me to read the book. I just bought a copy a few days ago – and it is 1260 pages. Hope the characters of Marius and Cosette have more depth in the book than they did on TV.

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