The movie drained every bit of emotion from the book and stage show. It was a roller coaster of haunting despair, tragedy, young love, unflinching honor, child death and yet more tragedy. By the time the lights came up I found myself exhausted, drained and yet, and yet... strangely despondent. This was not how I felt when I left the stage show. Then I was uplifted, challenged and deeply grateful to have lived in kinder, gentler times.
Why the difference? And which would the author of the book - Victor Hugo - have intended more?
What the book and stage show tapped into, and what the movie rather missed, is the meta-narrative of Christian redemption, in short: the Gospel.
The movie left me reflecting on the brutality of life for the underclass in new republics - a human and political reflection. Perhaps the zeitgeist of our times is coming into play here? As new democracies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, struggle to find their identity; as weekly we read of minorities suffering persecution in India and Pakistan, it seems reasonable that Les Miserable act as a lens through which to reflect on brutal legalism for those with power who are convinced that they are in 'the right' and that the human lives of the poor (which is what 'les miserables' means) are an unavoidable casualty of the need to enforce order through the rule of law.
And yet, this misses the deeply honorable motives of Javert who, above all else wants to uphold the high standards of righteousness. If thieves go free, if fighting persists in the streets, how can good and right and law and civilization triumph? The good of the future of France - whether under royal or republican control is what drives Javert. He is a patriot to France - whoever wins the revolution - and wants her to be pure and spotless and yes - honorable. Javert represents for us the Pharisee - driven by motives of personal and social holiness. This is the justice of God, without the mercy of God. This is that judgmental Christian in church who frowns at the dress sense of the young people, whose heart is full of honor and right and good - but who has lost the gentle tenderness of God.
Jean Valjean, for the most part, is you and is me. Driven by circumstances beyond his control he has transgressed the law many times - perhaps by good motive but perhaps sometimes by selfish motive. Certainly he insists that his crime was to steal bread purely to feed a hungry relative. And yet we suspect this is not the only time he has stolen. He certainly doesn't think much before stealing the Bishop Myriel's silver - even after having been taken in from a cold night, fed and given a warm bed. Myriel surely is Jesus Christ: full of mercy and grace, loving kindness and tenderness, and Valjean here is the beaten-down Samaritan by the roadside. The scene where Myriel tells the policeman that , yes, he did give the Valjean all the household silver is pure mercy. If that scene doesn't make you tear up, I am not sure what will.
The main flow of the whole story is Jean Valjean's journey of transformation from desperate sinner to Christ-likeness. By the end of the movie he has redeemed Fantine's daughter Cosette, and redeemed his own character. He has become self-sacrificial in the tenderness of love, just like Myriel, just like Christ. Valjean is not insensitive to the demands and costs of justice - even trying to turn himself in to free a man wrongly accused of Valjean's own identity and sins - a substitutionary atonement narrative right-in-your-face if ever there was one.
So the beauty and wonder of Les Miserable's is the overt Christian Gospel narrative that pits mercy against legalism, redemption against condemnation, adoption against estrangement, relationship over rightness, with Christlike goodness ultimately winning each battle. Jean Valjean dies a death full of love, surrounded by those who love him at the altar of the church, surrounded by the spirits of Bishop Myriel and tragic Fantine - at peace with God and himself.
Honorable, but legalistic and judgmental Javert, confronted with the indomitable kindness of Valjean, can no longer live with himself and takes his own life - a Judas Iscariot motif to Valjean's Apostle Peter in many ways - one sinning and self-condemned, one sinning but kissed and redeemed.
Holywood saw these themes and they are there in the movie but they are buried under the box-office imperative of taking us on an emotional roller-coaster ride, at the expense of the beauty of Victor Hugo's bigger picture.
Final thought: if Anne Hathaway doesn't get the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress then the Academy needs to jump off a bridge along with Javert!
