Film critic (Les Misrables)

“I dreamed that my life would be very different from this hell that I am living.” This quote comes from the movie Les Miserables, directed by Tom Hooper. The film is based on a novel by Victor Hugo. The movie was in the 1800’s during the Restoration period. The main events were taken in Paris, but some of them took place in neighboring towns. This review focuses on the character who symbolizes the good woman but ravaged by misery driven to despair and death by a cruel society: Fantine.

Les Miserables presents Fantine as a mother who was abandoned by her lover, Tholomyes. Knowing that she was pregnant, she had no choice but to take care of her child alone. She gave her daughter over to the Thenardiers’ provision. She started working in a factory owned by Monsieur Madeleine. During her stay there, her co-workers stole a letter from her and it is written that her daughter needs money because she is sick. Her co-workers told her foreman the news and eventually she was fired from her job. As a result, she began to find ways to support her daughter, then began to sell her locket, her hair, and her teeth. When she had nothing else to sell, she sold herself as a last resort. One night, a man told the inspector that she was trying to harass him. No doubt the inspector kept Fantine in order to imprison her. Monsieur Madeleine instantly jumped into the situation to save Fantine only to discover that she is fatally ill with tuberculosis. She was taken to the hospital where Madeleine promised her that he would take care of Cosette and then Fantine faced her death.

The film shows the inferiority of the female gender in society and that women were seen as sexual objects. Hugo demonstrates the hypocrisy of society that does not educate girls and excludes women like Fantine while encouraging the behavior of men like TholomyeÌ€s. As it was the 19th century, it is a shame for a woman to have an illegitimate child. So Fantine had two options: leave her child in the care of a willing family so she could earn a temporary salary, or leave the child in the local hospice and leave the baby in the ward of the state. So why did Fantine choose the former? Because abandoning Cosette in a hospice, although cheaper, easier and faster, would have been a death sentence for the little girl. At the time, half of all illegitimate children were turned over to the state, and more than half of those children ended up dying within the first year. Hospices were dirty, understaffed, underfunded, and overcrowded. That is why Fantine decided to let her son stay with the Thenardiers. A mother’s determination, self-sacrificing love, and perseverance were greatly on display in this film. Yet when we look at our culture, we see a society that discards the virtues of motherhood that she embodied: the virtues of sacrificial love and persistent loyalty. In the last part of the movie, Fantine got fired from her and started selling her hair, her teeth and herself. Eventually, a man called her names and she defended herself against her, the man then told the inspector, and Fantine was supposed to be jailed for defending herself against harassment. This plot illustrates the being “nobody” of a woman and her impotence. Although the society was in the 19th century, nothing much has changed over the years. We still live in a community where men are considered superior to women.

The film did not fail to retell the events of the past. The actors gave respect and dignity to their characters and acted very well. Also, the set design, costume design, and soundtrack were really effective in understanding the film better, as the designers used clothing worn during the 19th century aligned with the set design. I highly recommend this movie to everyone in our society, especially government officials, teenagers, and adults. A highly believable creation of an imagined world, Hugo’s style of imaginative realism emphasizes the two main predicaments of the 19th century: the degradation of men into the proletariat and the oppression of women. In this case, we can see that nothing much has changed over the years, these predicaments remain to this day. The movie is full of life changing lessons though, it was a great movie and definitely worth watching.