Before watching the movie:

I’m decently acquainted with the plot of the book, but somehow more through osmosis than from actually having watched the 1998 movie in class. I also recall attempting to read the book, but when I picked up the distressingly large tome with shockingly small text I was already having second thoughts, and then when this supposed English translation began with five pages in Latin, I put the book down and gave up.

I’ve wanted to experience the musical for a long time, and it’s always been a disappointment to me that the 1998 version was not based on the musical and that the musical was never properly filmed on stage (though there was an “original cast in concert” film just lined up on the stage performing the music, which I saw some of possibly in the same class that watched the other movie). When I decided to include Les Mis in this run of musicals, I was hoping there would’ve been another version because I’ve heard mostly bad things about Tom Hooper’s directorial decisions. But somehow this monumentally popular show has only been done on film the one time.

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