Movie Review: Les Misérables Jails the development of Javert -but who cares, we have Jackman!!

The fifth longest running Broadway musical in history lasting for a whopping 16 years in runtime with over 30 screen adaptations; Enter Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables, a film critically acclaimed for its emotional intensity, innovative cinematic musical renditions and equally powerful casting starring Oscar winning— Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway (Fantine) and Russel Crowe (Javert)— but for all its accomplishments and fame, one caveat of the story remains damningly underexplored.

Les Misérables follows ex-convict Jean Valjean’s (2 hour and 30 minute) lifelong quest for redemption after breaking parole, pursued relentlessly by Inspector Javert, a man devoted to the law. Burdened with the weight of responsibility in the form of Cosette (his adopted child), Valjean strives to right his wrongs and pave the way for the future generations. Amidst the poverty and rebellion of 19th-century France, the film captures the struggle between justice and mercy as Valjean seeks grace (or freedom depending on the perspective) in a world that refuses to forgive, while Javert fights to uphold order even as it tears him apart.

Hooper gives us every shade of Jean Valjean’s humanity, but it barely sketches Javert’s. The tragedy lies in the fact that Javert isn’t just a villain—he’s Valjean’s mirror. And by refusing to truly understand him, the film (and even the musical) simplifies one of literature’s most complicated moral duels into a story of good versus bad, when it was always supposed to be law versus grace, and both men were losing.

The majestically woven role that was Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Jean Valjean as he dons the, simply put, rags to riches protagonist showcased all of his suffering, anguish, mercy and ultimately his redemption and efforts to further the next generation. And all through this journey I, planted in a chair glued to a laptop as if I were writing the next big story on a Daily Planet typewriter, couldn’t stop wondering how one could even conceive such a masterful illusion of essentially a good versus evil agenda. Victor Hugo, the author of Les Misérables’ novel counterpart, took influence from the very real Eugéne Francois Vidocq, French criminal who later became a police private detective, as template for both Jean Valjean and Javert. But this begs the question, how did this story become so one-sided? For all its grandeur, the film barely whispers about Javert’s past. Why was he once the very thing he now fears?

During the emotional sub-climax where Jean Valjean and Javert battle it out in the hospital, they exchange feelings of purpose and notions of resolve as they fight to accomplish or rather reach their goals; It’s amidst this ferocious flurry of emotions when the film’s one and only notion to Javert’s past is revealed then forgotten; Javert, in a voice that fortunately only Russell Crowe could deliver (and sing, depending on how generous you’re feeling), states “ I was born with scum like you. I am from the gutter too.”

This last line, “I am from the gutter too,” by Javert was a real missed opportunity by Boublil and Schönberg (film’s original musical composers) to expand on Javer’s past hardships and conflicts to illustrate where he is today. Watching this scene from the latter unimaginable turmoil of Fantine’s life, one could’ve imagined a man who was terrified of becoming the thing he once escaped, a man who conquered his own chaos by worshipping order; that single line uttered by Javert could’ve redefined his whole personality (and given him more). It’s the confession of a man who’s spent his entire life pretending he climbed out of the dirt by sheer moral purity, but in truth Javert didn’t escape the gutter, he built a badge shaped cage around it. 

In the end, Les Misérables has remained one of cinema’s greatest contradictions. It’s a film that celebrates redemption but turns away from the man who never finds it. The spectacle is beautiful, the music unforgettable, and the emotions earned—yet beneath all that metaphysical acuity, the story still chooses to forgive one man while forgetting another. But perhaps that justifies in how the story illuminated through the test of time: a film that achieves greatness not in perfection, but in the questions it dares to leave unanswered. Or rather, that’s how I simply choose to see it.