Les Misérables is a story that usually just makes everyone cry. It's impossible not to feel touched and not leave the theater intoning Do you hear the people sing with tears on your eyes. But sometimes, a bit of previous knowledge (or extra knowledge) can make you suffer even more. Here are 10 times during the 2012 movie when the book readers (they exist) had a quite different reaction from the casual watchers:
*Bonus: remember some of the passages :)
1- When Javert said the famous words
Movie watcher: chill man
Book reader: "His name was Javert and he belonged to the police (...) Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us to say what there was in Police Officer Javert. The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as he grew up, he would devour the other little ones. Give this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be Javert." **** I'm already crying.
2- When the bishop appeared
Movie watcher: wow he's such a nice guy wish we got to know more about him
Book reader: so. many. pages. Oh look it's Mlle Baptistine and Mme Magloire! They look kind of funny. I feel like regulating some household expenses now.
3- When Fantine sold her teeth
Movie watcher: *gasps in horror*
Book reader: they added it. They didn't ignore it like in the play. I'm blessed *cries with satisfaction and remembers that in the book she sold the front teeth and each of them was worth a gold napoleon and she sent all to Cosette because she thought she was sick and it was all a plot from the Thenárdiers, so cries with anger and sorrow and thinks will never be happy again*
4- Whenever the Thénardiers appeared
Movie watcher: haha they're such fun it's good to take a break from all that suffering
Book reader: *foams at the mouth thinking about all they did to Fantine and Cosette and knows with all certainty that will never be able to forgive them*
*plus when they call Cosette "Colette": THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN JOKE WITH HER NAME IS GAVROCHE YOU DENATURED MONSTERS (and gives a sad smile thinking about Gavroche and "Mamselle Chosette")
5- When Cosette received the doll
Movie watcher: oww that's cute
Book reader: "Cosette raised her eyes; she gazed at the man approaching her with that doll as she might have gazed at the sun; she heard the unprecedented words, 'It is for you'; she stared at him; she stared at the doll; then she slowly retreated, and hid herself at the extreme end, under the table in a corner of the wall. She no longer cried; she no longer wept; she had the appearance of no longer daring to breathe (...) 'I shall call her Catherine.'" CATHERIIINEEE MY POOR LITTLE LARK IS HAPPY
* also silently laughs remembering the time Thénardier wrote servisse
* and lets not forget the feeling when Jean Valjean showed Thénardier Fantine's note telling him to deliver Cosette
6- When Jean Valjean sang Suddenly
Movie watcher: that song is a bit boring, I'm feeling sleepy. Can I pretend I'm Cosette?
Book reader: there's something in my eye. "Nature, a difference of fifty years, had set a profound gulf between Jean Valjean and Cosette; destiny filled in this gulf. Destiny suddenly united and wedded with its irresistible power these two uprooted existences, differing in age, alike in sorrow. One, in fact, completed the other. Cosette's instinct sought a father, as Jean Valjean's instinct sought a child. To meet was to find each other. At the mysterious moment when their hands touched, they were welded together. When these two souls perceived each other, they recognized each other as necessary to each other, and embraced each other closely. (...) He protected her, and she strengthened him. Thanks to him, she could walk through life; thanks to her, he could continue in virtue. He was that child's stay, and she was his prop. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of the balances of destiny!"
7- When Gavroche appeared for the first time
Movie watcher: what a cute little boy, I want to adopt him! Hahaha so funny he is so smart omg
Book reader: he's been abandoned by his parents. His parents are the Thénardiers and Éponine and Azelma are his sisters and the two younger kids he watches over are his brothers and he doesn't know it. My precious child, your destiny shall meet you in no time. "He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all, one of those who have father and mother, and are orphans nevertheless. This child never felt so well as when he was in the street. The pavements were less hard to him than his mother's heart. His parents had despatched him into life with a kick. He simply took flight." I can't breathe there's something stuck on my throat.
8- When Éponine sang On My Own
Movie watcher: *cries* POOR FRIEND-ZONED GIRL
Book reader: *also cries* I actually wish Victor Hugo had talked more about her "AND BY THE WAY, MONSIEUR MARIUS, I BELIEVE THAT I WAS A LITTLE BIT IN LOVE WITH YOU"
9- When Gavroche gave Jean Valjean Marius' letter to Cosette
Movie watcher: hahaha kids, how they surprise us. Calm down old man, it's only the cycle of life.
Book reader: "(...) of all the tortures which he had undergone in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, this was the most terrible. (...) The only trial, is the loss of the beloved being. (...) All this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum total was a lofty virtue, ended in rendering Jean Valjean a father to Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean; a father in whom there was included even a mother; a father who loved Cosette and adored her, and who held that child as his light, his home, his family, his country, his paradise." IN THIS MOMENT HE HATES MARIUS AND HE KNOWS HE CAN'T LIVE APPART FROM COSETTE BUT HE'S GOING TO SAVE HIM NONETHELESS BECAUSE HE CAN'T SEE HER SAD I. AM. DEAD.
* plus the emotion of seeing Valjean and Gavroche together on a scene right before the moment NO ONE is going to talk about.
10- When Jean Valjean died on Cosette's wedding day
Movie watcher: what a pity, she'll never be able to celebrate her wedding anniversary, that's unfortunate *crumbles when they sing "to love another person is to see the face of God"*
Book reader: * also crumbling* he actually sentenced himself to a slow death, each day getting farther from Cosette afraid of ruining her new life OH NO
"Il dort. Quoique le sort fût pour lui bien étrange,
Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange.
La chose simplement d'elle-même arriva,
Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va."
You read this thinking it would be somehow funny but now you're crying.
It's okay, I cried while writing it too.
