Being “friend-zoned” is one of the major fears of the “millenials” nowadays. This is prominently showed on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Although the movie Les Miserables was released way back in 2012, most of us were able to relate to Eponine’s character which became a martyr when it comes to her love for Marius. The story took place in France, mostly in the city of Paris, during the period of Restoration around 1800’s. The movie is derived from a French historical novel that is entitled with the same name as the movie. The title can be translated to “The Wretched” and by this; it shows that the movie is not a blissful book for it shows the darkest past of the French Revolution.
The movie will lead us into the lives of the people that were not quite recognizable by the history. As said earlier, this is a movie which shows a dark history- the downside of the French Revolution. Since there was a war that occurred back then, the innocent people were very affected by it. It will lead us to the lives of criminals, prostitutes, humbugs, name it. They clearly all do these so they would get out of poverty, so they could feed themselves and survive their everyday lives. This movie is not just focused on the story of French Revolution. Rather, there are a lot of side stories. One of which is a love triangle that is occurring between three young people. Marius, a young man who has flaming desires for a young woman named Cosette, who turns out to have the same interest to the young man. Eponine on the other hand, sees Marius as the apple of her eyes but the feelings were not reciprocated and it remained as one-sided love. However, although she knows that Marius cannot love her back as his lover, she still settled for friendship and I adore her for that.
I believe that one of the factors why Marius did not give a chance to love Eponine is because they are not on the same level in the social hierarchy since he is from a wealthy family while Eponine is not. The book to which was the movie was drawn from was written for about 155 years ago which shows the presence of this perception and yet, social discrimination is still prevailing in this age and time. There was this instance where Marius pays Eponine for a favor but she declines the money that is given to her. Though she declined the offer, she was blinded by her love for Marius and she still did him a favor.
The whole experience of watching the movie is a great one. It was very informative but not like the cliché types which are often times boring. The idea of doing a movie about history with some side stories is a brilliant idea to drive young adults like me to know about history. The casting is perfect, the edits were super fine and the songs were perfect and they gave identity to the movie. The actors were very effective because they were able to convey the emotions and affect the viewers. Overall, I think this historic movie is one of the classics when it comes to musicals.
