Les Misérables

The third American bigscreen rendition of Victor Hugo's classic novel, Bille August's Les Miserables is without a doubt the most emotionally powerful and handsomely mounted production of the story yet. Read full review

However turbulent its narrative, this Les Miserables unfolds in a comforting style, serious and intelligent in ways that seem much too quaint today. The essence of Hugo's morality tale remains pure, and so does the value of a vigorous, gripping story, straightforwardly told. Read full review

Condensing a massive tome like Les Misérables into a cohesive 129-minute film is a labor of love in any case, and August succeeds with remarkable, powerful results. Read full review

The pacing never flags and the story—let’s face it—is well-nigh unbeatable. Read full review

While this version of Les Miserables lacks the cleverness and contemporary spin evident in Claude Lelouch's brilliant 1995 re-interpretation, it is moving and effective in its own right, as a more "straightforward" adaptation. Read full review

August's production, while not on a level with either of those memorable predecessors, is solid nonetheless. Its strengths are its handsome amplitude and the intelligent clarity with which the various strands of the novel are advanced by a smoothly meshed international cast. [01 May 1998, p.D4]

This latest Les Miserables is a watchable, even worthy, attempt. It's far from miserable. [01 May 1998, p.21]

Handsomely mounted, strikingly photographed in wide screen and exquisitely acted, director Bille August's new version of Les Miserables is at least the 21st adaptation for the movies or television. [01 May 1998]

Neeson and Rush give emotionally rich portrayals of the main characters, and August's proudly classical filmmaking keeps the dramatic energy high even when the secondary performances sag in the story's second half. [08 May 1998, p.10]

A solid remake of Victor Hugo's classic about a man who steals a loaf of bread and the police inspector who hounds him for years because of it, with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush. Director Bille August's focus on the love-story angles blurs the epic messages about freedom, honor and justice. [07 Jun 1998, p.C6]

Bille August, the prize-winning director of "Pelle the Conqueror" and "The Best Intentions," takes on the much-filmed Victor Hugo novel in this sturdy, well-produced nonmusical treatment of the story starring Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush. [05 Nov 1998]

An eager, earnest, broadly constructed pageant of ideas and characters whose greatest asset may be the service it pays to literature. [01 May 1998, p.F1]

August's Les Misérables is the sort of film for which such faint-praise terms as "handsome" and "not bad" were invented. It's all of the above, and at times a bit better, but ultimately an experience akin to flipping through Cliffs Notes and a book of French paintings at the same time. Read full review

It's epic, sweeping, and genuinely engrossing for awhile, but then it stumbles. [07 Nov 1998]

Great book, great cast, average film: Les Miserables is all pedigree, no passion. Read full review

Les Miserables is like a perfectly respectable Classics Illustrated version of the Victor Hugo novel. It contains the moments of high drama, clearly outlines all the motivations, is easy to follow and lacks only passion. A story filled with outrage and idealism becomes somehow merely picturesque. Read full review

Quite simply, Les Miserables is a messy classic -- difficult to condense, contrived and highly melodramatic, which made it fine fodder for a pop opera. To counter the antiquated excess, Danish director Bille August ( Pelle The Conqueror ) keeps the mood as cool as an autumn night in Copenhagen, which also creates an emotional distance. [01 May 1998, p.6G]

Short on wrenching passion, but never less than competent, Les Misérables is merely passable. It might have been titled Les Compétents. [01 May 1998, p.C4]

An honorable and well-acted version of Victor Hugo's classic book bag-buster (not the Broadway musical), a sprawling melodrama whose prodigious length and scope have bedeviled all previous adaptations and hang heavily over this one as well. Read full review

Strip away [Hugo's] sociopolitical rhetoric, and you're left with a simple, heartfelt story. The film directed by Bille August and written by Rafael Yglesias does just that, rendering the plot handsomely. It's far from miserable, but it's not "Miserables," either. [01 May 1998, p.10E]

At 2 hours and 20 minutes Les Miserables is an unholy slog. It's the sort of movie where, when a title pops up saying, "Ten Years Later," you sink down in your seat certain it's going to be 20 before you get the hell out of there. Read full review

This latest, from director Bille August, is merely respectful and respectable. It never sinks, but it never really soars either, though here and there it hits a powerful moment. Read full review

It's a dutiful but rarely lively effort, and hardly an inspired one - a film destined, perhaps, to please those unacquainted with earlier and richer cinematic adaptations. [01 May 1998, p.L40]

Hugo's themes may be timeless, but in this version the viewer is all too aware of the passing time. [04 May 1998, p.81]