I enjoyed the recent miniseries of Les Miserables but I was somewhat disappointed by it too. I was hoping it would be of comparable quality to the 2012 movie version of the musical so I could recommend it as an introduction to the story for people who wouldn't want to read the book and don't like musicals. But I have to say the movie was superior. (I know the 2012 movie has its detractors. Suffice to say I'm not one of them.)
Andrew Davies the screenwriter is really good at taking classic novels which are hard to get into and making them faster paced and more engaging on screen while still keeping the elements that make them classics. But he has some annoying tendencies, mainly a desire to sensualize these classic works of literature. The gratuitous dream scene in episode 4 was a particularly annoying case in point since it involved changing a major character's personality for no reason. (PM me if you really want details.) Since I'm against sensuality on screen, this makes it hard for me to recommend this miniseries as an introduction to the story. (It's true that the 2012 movie also has a bit of sexual content but less of it and it doesn't feel like it was shoehorned in for its own sake like that of this miniseries.)
Most of my problems with the miniseries have to do with the writing. The sets, cinematography and music were great. And the casting was pretty inspired too. Dominic West (Jean Valjean), David Oyelowo (Javert), Lily Collins (Fantine) and Olivia Colman (Madame Thenardier) all gave great performances. The younger generation of characters sadly weren't quite as well cast. Ellie Bamber (Cosette) and Josh O' Connor (Marius) were somewhat bland though they did have some really good moments. I'd also have liked to have felt more chemistry between them.
Speaking of Cosette, she was probably the main character whose personality got changed the most which I'm used to. Cosette's personality in the book is very un-PC for a heroine anyway. Now I really admire what Victor Hugo does with Cosette in the book. How many people can take a ditzy fashion-preoccupied teenage girl, who is oblivious to most of the drama going on around her, and make her feel like and real person whom you sympathize with? But I'll admit that's even harder to do in a cinematic medium so I can understand changing the character a little. This miniseries takes a page from the 1998 movie by having Cosette be more aware of the limitations of her life on the run and more rebellious towards Valjean. I can't stand this in the 1998 movie but I'm mostly good with how it plays out here. Maybe it's because where that movie wanted to portray Cosette as the good guy and Jean Valjean as the bad guy, this series portrays them both as flawed but sympathetic characters like they are in the book. Maybe it's because while the movie pretty much scrapped Cosette's whole character from the book and replaced her with a generic 90s heroine, the miniseries character still seems like it's broadly anchored to her arc from the book. (I know the 1998 movie has its fans. Suffice to say I'm not one of them.)
I wish some scenes had contained more dialogue from the book. Because of the characters' tendency to go off into lengthy and somewhat incoherent speeches, a word for word adaptation would not only be impractical but undesirable. But I still feel the book had some great lines which the miniseries could have used. There were also a lot of little changes to story which I thought didn't make sense, even in the episodes in which I thought the show was really firing on all cylinders. (Episodes 2, 3 and 6 for those interested.)
For example, I have no idea why they didn't have Thenardier steal something from Marius' body as a way for the characters to identify it later. It would have taken barely any time to show and would made the scene flow much better.)
None of these changes are enough to ruin the miniseries but they're annoyingly frequent.
Still, for all my nitpicking, Andrew Davies really did an admirable job with the herculean task of adapting Les Miserables. While it has a lot of exciting scenes, it's a really hard book to translate to a visual medium, not only because of its length and complicated structure, but because so much of the drama is internal. That's why the most popular adaptation is a musical in which the characters can express what they're thinking and feeling out loud. This miniseries did a great job finding visual ways for the characters to express what was going on inside them. (Well, it did for Valjean anyway.
Giving Javert a sidekick to confide in raised the question of why the sidekick didn't arrest Jean Vajean at the end. Wasn't that his duty as a member of the police? That being said, this adaptation made Javert's suicide more moving than version I've seen including the book. Not that I don't find it sad on an intellectual level in the book and in adaptations. But this is the only one that makes me feel sad.
) While I wouldn't recommend it over the 2012 movie, I would recommend it over pretty much all of the movie versions I've seen.
For better or worse-for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis?-hope was left behind.
-The God Beneath the Sea by Leon Garfield & Edward Blishen