I confess – I just didn’t love Les Mis

My kids saw it over the Christmas break. (not together, of course. She’s 16, he’s 14 and they wouldn’t be caught dead!)  Many of my friends have seen it.  Co-workers saw it and rhapsodized. Anne Hathaway adds to her award collection daily because of it.  But I still hadn’t seen it.  It being Les Miserables – the long-awaited cinematic extravaganza everyone’s been talking, writing and dreaming about.  So last night, Mike and i set out to the local theatre to finally check it out.

This movie had it all.  Huge, sweeping vistas – check.  Oppresser and oppressed – check. Grime-covered stars, star-crossed love, singing urchins – check, check and check. Frankly, there wasn’t a thing in this movie that wasn’t dead on.  The music was gorgeous and, after all the years the musical has been around, familiar.  The performances were wonderful – everything they needed to be and more.  The story is eternal.  Altogether, it culminates in what those fancy critics refer to a theatrical extravaganza, the likes of which we haven’t seen in a generation…or something like that.  But not for me.  There wasn’t anything wrong with it – I really wanted to love it.  I was waiting to be transported, to be swept away by song and story.  Nope.

Maybe it was the length; nearly 3 hours is a long time for fidgety me to sit still.  (Although I happily swooned through all 8 epic-length Harry Potters)  Maybe it was the surroundings – it’s flu season after all and based on the honking coming from the seats around me, I was seated in the tubercular section.  For what ever reason, I couldn’t get lost in this one.  I dunno, maybe it was trying too hard?

What about you?  Did you see it? Did you love it?