Les Misérables

An excellent adaption of a masterpiece is almost ruined at the BBC's attempt to take political correctness to dizzying heights. There were most probably very few if any black people in France at this time - let alone a black policeman (a sergeant at that).

If you can filter this (major) distraction out of the film, this is not a bar adaption at all. Mesmerising in its delivery and very entertaining.

I just finished the first episode and the excitement I feel is like no other. For the first time, I feel like the novel of Les Misérables has finally caught the eyes of some brilliant director who can bring out the full potentials of the story to light . Now right from the beginning when you watch, you can sense that there is something special about this show. The cinematography, the acting, and the outstanding story are all mixed together to exhibit a work that I might personally claim to be far better than the previous versions of Liam Neeson and Hugh Jackman.

Let me start to say that I have really enjoyed the current adaptation of les miserables by the BBC. Beautiful colours, scenery, script, a classic social story and of course good actors. What I do not enjoy are the contributions by what I have to describe as the race police. Les miserables is a story, written in a time when racial diversity was less then it is now. But to portray this story in this time with the actors we now have it would be strange to cast actors on basis of racial attributes dating back two centuries. It would be equally strange to defend the choice of actors for certain characters by explaining Javert could have been Haitian as there were some Haitians in France at that time, but then you would have to argue why Javert could be from Haiti, but not Valjean, which discussion to me seems even more nonsensical. Reading some of the contributions some people seem to think that a cast must not only mention actors skills but also race, but I do not agree. I think the public is well informed enough to look past these casting choices as long as the acting is top notch. In opera we see German women play Chinese princesses in Turandot, I even saw an Afro-American Brunhilde and why not, as long as the performance does not suffer. Coming back to Les Miserables, I like how Valjean and Fantine are played, I have some trouble with Javert though, maybe more because of the character than the way he is portrayed. His motivation is explained, but his actions are not always so clear cut to me, but maybe I'm missing something as it is only the second episode.

I found this excellent story telling. I also wanted to see a non musical version of a story of redemption and forgiveness story. So they cast a black man he if a good actor and did his character justice. The sadness and desperateness of the characters was well done. I will be watching all of this series. I just watched episode 2 and I am really liking this...Well done BBC......

I'm not going to say much, it's all been said by other reviewers but I have to make one comment - the reason some of them have cockney accents is to point out they were from the poorer areas of Paris, exactly the same was decided for the musical. It is often the best way to demonstrate class structure.