‘Les Misérables’ Review: A Starry, Lavishly Empty, French-Language Version of Victor Hugo’s Epic — SkimNews
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- Fred Cavayé directed a new 179-minute French-language "Les Misérables" adaptation with a reported $37M budget, casting Vincent Lindon as an older Jean Valjean and newcomer Ryan Fartout as the young convict.
- Tahar Rahim plays Inspector Javert, with Noémie Merlant as Fantine and Benjamin Lavernhe and Camille Cottin as the venal Thénardiers, who scavenge gold teeth from fallen soldiers at Waterloo.
- The Variety review calls the film "lavishly empty," arguing that its digitally rendered 19th-century cityscapes, battlefield vistas and costumed extras provide "weightless distraction" rather than the subtext or socio-political texture Hugo's novel demands.
- Netflix is credited as a production partner, and the reviewer explicitly questions why the sprawling source material wasn't adapted as a streaming-service miniseries instead of a nearly three-hour feature.
- The review flags a glaring irony: the production's parent company Canal+ has reportedly blacklisted filmmakers who criticized its right-wing billionaire majority shareholder, even as this adaptation reduces the Paris Commune barricades of the finale to "bloodied background color."
- The film's final narration — "As long as misery exists, stories like this must always be told" — is dismissed as a transparent justification for yet another retread of a story the reviewer calls as ubiquitous as "chlorine in the water supply."
Why it matters: A $37M, 179-minute prestige adaptation that refuses to engage Hugo's revolutionary politics arrives while its parent company Canal+ faces scrutiny for allegedly silencing filmmakers who challenge its right-wing ownership — a contradiction the reviewer says the production is too timid to confront. The casting of major French stars (Lindon, Rahim, Merlant) in archetypal roles signals how safely the project plays it, recycling familiar iconography without earning the spectacle.
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