Fred Cavayé’s Epic ‘Les Misérables’ Adaptation Delivers Scale Without Soul

Nobody sings in the latest big-screen adaptation of Victor Hugo’s monumental 1,462-page literary classic, but the complete absence of rousing musical numbers does not mean that director Fred Cavayé has opted for gritty realism. The 179-minute film, backed by a reported $37 million budget and starring a roster of major French actors cast in starchily archetypal roles, splashes its financial resources across the screen in a manner that has come to stand shorthand for "epic." Audiences are treated to wide vistas of battlefields, gliding aerial angles framing meticulous, digitally rendered 19th-century cityscapes, and sprawling taverns and courtrooms teeming with costumed extras. Yet, all of this aesthetic padding ultimately provides a weightless distraction for how curiously unmoving the final product feels. It amounts to three gusty hours of having plenty to look at while finding virtually nothing to see.

One hardly needs to be a dedicated fan of Les Misérables—indeed, one does not even need to have read, seen, attended, or listened to a single entry from well over a century’s worth of preceding books, movies, television shows, theater adaptations, radio plays, musical productions, and comic books—to find Cavayé’s film intimately familiar. The epic narrative surrounding Jean Valjean’s decades-spanning conflict with Inspector Javert operates much like a persistent element in a public water supply; audiences have ingested it whether they realize it or not. What truly stands out, however, is how little this version distinguishes itself from its countless predecessors. Cavayé makes efficient work of streamlining the novel’s vast sprawl into a runtime of just three hours, seemingly aiming to forge a median, definitive ur–Les Misérables against which all future adaptations might be measured. Yet, in striving for the definitive, the film ultimately becomes derivative. Its cramped narrative ambitions make a large-scale production feel paradoxically small—so much so that it frequently seems better suited for a smaller home screen. Why this project was not developed as a streaming-service miniseries remains an open question, particularly given that Netflix serves as a production partner on the venture.

The casting choices, by contrast, prove far less perplexing. The iconic role of Jean Valjean, previously inhabited in various Francophone interpretations by cinematic luminaries such as Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Gérard Depardieu, has practically evolved into an earned honor over the decades—a medal that can be pinned directly to the chest of any French actor maturing into his national treasure phase. Vincent Lindon certainly fits that established bill, though it remains somewhat less clear how seamlessly he meshes with newcomer actor Ryan Fartout, who portrays the younger, hyper-muscular iteration of Valjean. As the film opens, this youthful Valjean’s rippling physique is being ruthlessly exploited in harsh construction labor, looking remarkably like a modern fragrance campaign long before Calvin Klein ever launched its Eternity line.

Valjean’s famous act of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family is refashioned here into a high-octane foot chase and physical fight setpiece before he is inevitably apprehended and consigned to an ever-lengthening prison sentence. Following his eventual release, the deeply resentful ex-convict experiences a profound conversion catalyzed by the genuine Christian compassion shown to him by Monseigneur Myriel, played by Frédéric Pierrot. Years later, Valjean has completely reinvented himself under a new identity as Monsieur Madeleine, operating as the deeply decent proprietor of a prosperous glass factory and serving as the popular mayor of Montreuil.

Inspector Javert, brought to life by Tahar Rahim, has experienced a fundamentally different trajectory. He grows increasingly crueler as he climbs the ranks of law enforcement, driven primarily by intense self-hatred—manifested through frequent mirror-smashing episodes—and haunted by persistent apparitions of his mother. In this version’s backstory, she forced him into petty thievery as a young boy and subsequently abandoned him the moment he was caught pilfering a pocket watch. This timepiece serves as just one of several clocks that regularly appear throughout the narrative, functioning simultaneously as a symbol of wealth and an inescapable reminder of all the actual time passing while the audience sits through the film. This is not to suggest that the movie drags its feet; edited at a brisk clip by Mickael Dumontier and driven relentlessly forward by Christophe Julien’s adventure-heavy score, the narrative skims rapidly across the surface, largely unburdened by deep subtext, psychological complexity, or rich socio-political texture. Instead, the production prioritizes sheer plot momentum.

Javert is eventually posted to Montreuil, where he becomes consumed by the growing suspicion that Monsieur Madeleine is hiding a shadowy past. Elsewhere, the venal Thénardiers—portrayed by Benjamin Lavernhe and Camille Cottin—are introduced scavenging gold teeth from the corpses of fallen soldiers on the muddy battlefield of Waterloo. In a cruel twist of fate, Fantine, played by Noémie Merlant, stops at the tavern run by the Thénardiers while traveling to Montreuil alongside her angelic young daughter, Cosette. Madame Thénardiers, recognizing an easy mark instantly—having scarcely a single line of dialogue that does not revolve around fleecing some unsuspecting person—persuades the desperate young mother to leave the girl in their care so she can continuously extort money from Fantine for her upkeep.

However, disaster strikes when Fantine is abruptly fired from Monsieur Madeleine’s factory. Stripped of her livelihood, she resorts to selling her hair, then her teeth, and finally her body—a tragic descent that Monsieur Madeleine only discovers when Fantine is already on her deathbed. Overwhelmed by remorse, he vows to watch over young Cosette and raises her as his own surrogate daughter. As the narrative progresses, an adult Cosette, played by Megan Northam, falls deeply in love with Marius, portrayed by Vassili Schneider. Despite his privileged background, Marius is a dedicated leftist resistance agitator who has also befriended the Thénardiers’ neglected daughter, Éponine, brought to life by ensemble standout Marie Colomb.

Such narrative developments invite larger questions about the necessity of the project. Why, in the current cultural landscape, does the public require yet another iteration of Les Misérables, particularly one so profoundly uninterested in reflecting its own contemporary world? Even the dramatic barricades of the Paris Commune in the film’s finale function as little more than bloodied background color. Perhaps, given recent controversies surrounding production parent company Canal+—which was reportedly reported for blacklisting filmmakers who criticized the growing influence of their right-wing billionaire majority shareholder—a more trenchantly political take on labor resistance and the struggles of the working poor would have been an irony too far for such a stolidly conventional project.

Whatever the underlying motivations might be, the film offers a transparent attempt to justify its own existence in its final moments. The closing narration concludes with a sentiment running roughly along the lines of, "As long as misery exists, stories like this must always be told." By that logic, if society ever hopes to stem the endless, interchangeable flow of future Les Misérables adaptations, the straightforward solution is simply to eradicate human misery altogether.