Les Miserables (2012)

The big-screen adaptation of the tragedy/musical “Les Miserables” is everything every N.Y. film critic has said: Bombastic, sentimental, and manipulative; it tosses out tragedies like candy at a parade and has a story arc that could rival the Bible, but -- so what? Have they read Victor Hugo’s novel? The contrivances that drive its plot are halved here, and still may produce viewer whiplash. Hugh Jackman plays the Job-like French peasant Jean Valjean who finds faith and wealth after serving a grueling 19-year prison sentence for stealing bread, and sees raising the child of a doomed street woman named Fantine (Anne Hathaway) as his God-ordered duty. Meanwhile, he dodges an obsessive police inspector (Russell Crowe) hell-bent on law and order. Directed by Tom Hooper (“King’s Speech”), “Mes” proudly defies cynicism, and my cynical-self fell for it, especially the actors who sing on and to the camera with none of the lip-syncing shit that makes most musicals a chore. Crowe may be a blank, but Hathaway gives a performance that left me rattled. Jackman, too. Yes, it oozes excess at every turn, but Hugo would happily hum along. I did. B+