A Glimpse At My High School Life

I've been looking through some work I did a couple years ago for a Fiction Writing class and I came across this (in my opinion) pretty well-written scene out of a larger piece about different times in my life where I've felt offended/bullied/uncomfortable/at risk. Technically the assignment was to do a creative story of a real-life event and while this instance did actually occur to me there are some liberties I've taken with little details. For instance, I never had a PE class with Maya.

I've since abandoned fiction writing for the most part, mainly because I don't feel I'm consistent enough in my abilities to continue as an actual fiction writer, but also because the process is very lengthy and I've lost some interest in the subject as a whole to boot. But, I was intrigued by this and thought some people might enjoy seeing a different creative side of my brain.

The title of the entire work was 'The Better Part.' I've no idea what that was supposed to mean, but I assume I felt it had some profound significance to me. Whatever. Enjoy.

In the grand scheme of things I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered whether or not I had gotten dressed for gym class that day.  I would have preferred not to, yet ultimately was convinced via text messaging from Maya, that the scheduled activity would not be overly strenuous.  It was a commonly-practiced rule at my school that should a student appear in P.E. without the appropriate uniform than he or she would be marked down two points yet still allowed to participate in the class. 

            And so it had been- we had done nothing more than a day of indoor kickball, yet I, along with three others, was permitted by my kind teacher to simply walk the track inside the Field House.  My dressing for class had become an inconsequential decision, but as usual I had let my self-conscious mind concern myself with trivial matters.

            I, of course, was the first to arrive in the locker room after the gym bell had rung; I had made a habit of rushing quickly there so as to avoid being the awkward and embarrassed focus of cruel eyes that would judge and curt voices that would taunt me for my overweight form and choice of clothes.  My pudgy sausage fingers fumbled with the lock in slight nervousness, but I was able to open the thing in time for me to grab my jeans, t-shirt, and jacket and stuff myself into each roughly.  By the time the hollers of excited and rambunctious male students greeted my ears I was fully dressed and removing my backpack from the larger locker next to the one that now contained my uniform.  My gaze darted quickly to either side of me as the much more athletic and mostly better-looking guys began to disrobe and pull on their regular clothes.  I blushed slightly and shrugged off the feeling that someone had noticed my desiring looks.  I focused my thoughts on other matters such as the upcoming Latin quiz in my next class and pushed through the heavy back door of the locker room that was rarely used due to its often unknown location.

            The hallway I entered was, for the most part, empty of students, save for the few who had been let out early from swim class because of the extra time needed for changing.  I passed by a girl with still-damp locks and caught a whiff of chlorine infused with Garnier-Fructis shampoo, I wondered how she had found the time to wash her hair that thoroughly with a sudsy cleanser that she must have brought from home.  A set of doors greeted me, separating the hallway I currently was in from an atrium of sorts that served to buffer the transition from gym classes to the rest of the school.  I pressed on, opening the somewhat rusted aperture, and deposited myself in the semi-lobby.  It was noticeably colder here, but this was understandable, there was yet another set of doors, now visible, that allowed entry into an outdoor passageway that eventually led to the other end of the gym wing.  Despite the thickness of the walls and the doors themselves there was no avoiding the pervasive Illinois winter air, which always managed to worm itself into the smallest of cracks and reign frigid breezes down upon the unsuspecting students who merely waited for the next bell to ring.  Unlike the rest of the school, due primarily to the size of the enclosure, the entryway was not randomly decorated with a plethora of advertisements for different social gatherings and clubs, in fact there was nothing of great interest in the place; if one considered pieces of hardened gum stuck to the tile floor to be beauteous then perhaps it could be called of minor interest, but as no one does so, so can the hallway not be called a place of required attention.

            My overstuffed backpack sagged mightily on my now-weakened shoulders and I decided to remove the burden upon me momentarily so as to provide a fleeting feeling of comfort.  As I did so, I inadvertently let the load drop slightly onto the sneaker of an approaching male student.  The boy groaned slightly in a combination of minor pain and aggravation at the possible dirtying of his new shoes. 

            “What the fuck?” the injured student exclaimed.  I hurriedly dragged the backpack off of the shoe and set it down properly on the floor.

            “I’m s-sorry,” I apologized for the accident.  The student was taller, but younger than I, yet I was a senior and had, though in this situation it seemed irrelevant, a certain class-oriented and unspoken dominance over him.  He was a lean African-American student who enjoyed basketball, as was evidenced by his jersey outfit and impeccably clean Nike Reeboks.  I grew fearful of this- a sports jock surely had the ability to inflict terrible pain upon a person that offended him in any manner.  The leviathan looked down upon me and noticed my shoes, which still prominently displayed the words: “I Love Boys” in multi-colored Sharpie. 

              “You gay?” the query was slurred slightly and given the somewhat bloodshot appearance of the other boy’s eyes, I assumed that he had just previously inhaled deeply of a marijuana joint. 

My focus became less on the question itself; instead my gaze became more intent.  The braids on the guy’s head were frayed and worn out, dandruff on his shoulders glistened slightly in the sunlight as he shifted his whole body a little towards me, hoping to intimidate, and specks of dried skin fell from his nostrils like snowflakes as he flared them in a moment of apprehensive concern for his well-being, for he was in the presence of a homosexual, an individual with whom he shared no commonalities and the strongest of animosities.

            Several more students pushed open the doors behind us, the metal frames squeaked and groaned in pain of constant use, and murmurs of girls and sports fell about the frigid air of the hallway.  I, though wearied from an exhaustive day of schoolwork was then able to work up enough gusto and energy to defend myself if need be.  The situation on the bus had only occurred several months ago and memories of it flashed before me.  I was struck by the random coincidence of the bullies all being of the same race, whether this mentality was reflective of the entire African American culture had occurred to me only briefly, I had many friends who were black and the best of comrades in my mind, so I decided no, this was just mere fateful chance and nothing more.  I nodded my head assuredly and answered in a weak, yet still audible voice, “Yes.”

            I saw his lip curl slightly into a disdainful sneer and his right eye twitch momentarily as he pondered briefly how to react accordingly to what I considered a minor declaration.  My face warmed suddenly by the new surge of pouring sunlight from outside and I noticed his pupils dilate in response.  Like a vampire, he recoiled his head quickly into the darker, shadowy parts of the school hallway, and exclaimed, “Goddamn!”  He had made his choice and though it saddened me some, I was more relieved in the moment to realize that nothing of dire consequence had come of the situation.  My focus returned to other trivial matters- the remains of the school day, yet still, during the last minute or so before the bell rang I found myself glancing back toward him both out of mild concern for my own well being as well as genuine curiosity. 

            A cohort, another young man, to whom he whispered, joined him.  They both shot me darting glares of disparaging disgust and anger and the new one, it seemed in slow motion, mouthed the word, “Faggot,” at me.  A pulse raced through my jaw and it was set out of place in response to their near derogatory name-calling.  Yet I did not waver from my place, I did not shout back at them or demand a teacher’s attention.  I was above them and would not sink to any level near them. 

And so the bell rang, and we, all of the students, marched onward towards our next class.  I would not fully recall the event in the hours that followed, as I was caught up greatly in the chaos that was school and schoolwork, yet still, thoughts of it would meander aimlessly through my imagined sights and though I did not consider the occurrence on the same level as say a hate crime, it did effect me some.  I considered the hate and ignorance that existed in the world and how prevalent it had become for so many different people in recent years, but more so I realized the manner in which such disdain occurred for individuals.  Sometimes overtly with violence and yet, in a sense, more troubling and prominent were the unnoticed subtleties with which cruel people did and still do enact the outrage over something they do not understand or desire to.  

Les Miserably Awful

I would very eagerly argue that Tom Hooper's production of Les Miserables is quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen on the big screen. That's from after almost twenty years of going to a rather large variety of different movies. I might classify Eragon and The Spirit as truly awful films, but at the very least they have laughably bad elements to them and in small, mostly well-intentioned moments have scenes or performances that are relatively enjoyable (actors having fun chewing the scenery, a decent action sequence). To me, a truly bad film is not one that is necessarily egregious or offensive on every level. Instead, I find films that have more than just moments of moderate goodness, that have entire sequences that are truly brilliant and astounding, but that are stilly wholly intolerable in all other regards, are the truly most dreadful movies. Films that have glimmers of greatness and potential basically show that at one point the director or the production team knew that they could do something genuinely good with the material they had been given, but then proceeded to squander everything else. I find that to be incredibly embarrassing. Somehow, to me, it's ultimately worse to be mediocre and boring than it is to be outwardly horrible in every way. At least with ridiculously bad movies like The Room we can all laugh. But when something just fundamentally doesn't work on a dramatic or cinematic level, it leaves me squirming in my seat. It's just uncomfortable and weird, why the hell couldn't they figure this stuff out in a way other than what they chose to go with on screen?

There is so much to be said about my hatred for this film, that I'll just get right to the point and simply break down into their essentials most of the issues I had.

So now, in no particular order-

My Problems With Les Miserables (With a smattering of praise here and there):

The Songs- they're mostly pretty forgettable tunes in their own right. By which I mean the lyrics aren't terribly memorable and the actual music tends to get drowned out by the bombast of the rather overwhelming volume applied to everyone's voices. They're either ridiculously loud or muffled and incomprehensible, proving the sound on this movie isn't very good. All that coupled with the fact that they're sung in a purposefully raw and emotional manner by virtually the entire cast makes most of them unbearably overwhelming, and not in the good way. All of the drama and meaning that could be naturally evoked by a more genuine and stripped down version of the songs is done away with when Hooper and company douse every single one in gallons of syrupy melodrama and extreme earnestness mixed with an extraordinarily overdone score. Nothing really matches except for the occasional right choice like the uninterrupted I Dreamed A Dream or the appropriately epic One Day More. Random ditties like Suddenly and Castle On A Cloud are both instantly forgettable and insufferably maudlin. I'll get to the quality of each actor's singing voice when I look at their performances overall on an individual basis.

The Musical & The Book- Now I don't know the first thing about Victor Hugo's original novel or the extremely popular musical adaptation of it. I know both are incredibly well known by those who love and adore French literature and Broadway musicals. I know I am still, at the very least, intrigued to read Hugo's book, if for the only reason that I like Hugo's style of writing and enjoyed The Hunchback of Notre Dame immensely. I've heard tell that the stage version of Les Miserables is probably one of the best and strongest of the many adaptations of the work. Given the length of the novel, most films and TV series have struggled to make every last character and subplot come to life even in the span of many hours. The musical offers a rare opportunity to turn the majority of the novel's dense material into actual song lyrics and as this entire production is sung from beginning to end, with only the occasional line of dialogue being spoken, there is a better chance for the minutiae of the book to be given proper attention. Having said that, there is still much to be excised for dramatic purposes. I could talk at some length about how adaptations should and shouldn't work for film, but all I will say, in regards to Les Miserables, is that whatever may have been altered or shifted around or dropped or re-worked is completely irrelevant and non-evident on the big screen. If this is the definitive Sparknotes version of Les Miserables, with the barest essentials of the plot kept intact, than I am not really all that impressed. I shan't go into more detail here, because I have reserved analyses of each individual character and their problems within the terms of the overall story below.

Tom Hooper- I adored Tom Hooper's previous effort as a director, The King's Speech. I could discuss my own justification for his sometimes controversial framing techniques and how they can be theoretically useful and thematically appropriate depending on the sort of story you're telling, but again, this is all about Les Miserables. I can see why Hooper was chosen for this film. The drabness and realism he evoked with the visual stories of King's Speech and John Adams made him relatively ideal from a stylistic perspective. But beyond that, Hooper doesn't have any kind of sensibility of how to truly direct a film like Les Miserables. The shaky handicam cinematography set-aside for a moment, what else is there in Hooper's oeuvre that really defines him as the best choice for this movie? Not much. He gravitates toward the intimate stories of larger than life individuals and real people. He is excellent at humanizing those who would normally be seen as vain and self-centered in their issues. Think very simply of the historical context of The King's Speech and how it relates to its protagonist's main problem throughout the film. The King of England has a stutter and must overcome it in order to give a politically and socially vital speech that could rally the people and help in turning the tide of the war. That's a real-life, rather grandiose individual, with a true and important background story, and an issue that he needs to address. An issue that has enormous impact on the world. Les Miserables is nothing like that. Now I'm all for a director branching out and trying new material or genres, but for Tom Hooper to direct Les Miserables seems like a massive misstep right from the outset. Les Miserables is a gigantic, gigantic story of dozens of different characters spanning many years involving extraordinarily large themes and ideas that are ultimately romanticized by the nature of the plot. The problems each of these characters face are very specific to themselves and it necessitates an even, yet varied hand in applying the appropriate amounts of drama, melodrama, or romance to each. Hooper handles each little subplot with the same extremely unsteady and unsure hand. Even he doesn't know what the hell the entire story means at the end of the day. And that's because the story and plot of Les Miserables really has no consistent theme. It's a big, fat, juicy, sprawling epic. It's like Gone With the Wind. It's not about much and that's okay. Because movies aren't are all driven by the subject matter alone, they are driven by how they are about that subject matter, the methods employed to creative an imaginative and uniquely original perspective on an old story that we've seen a thousand times before. Hooper handles Les Miserables bizarrely by not knowing what the hell he wants out of the story. Is it something new, something old, something raw, something spontaneous? What? Think about the tone of the movie and for that matter, the style. We rocket from scene to scene never sure what the hell could come next because there's never anything that's truly established. Not a location, not a sense of character, there's no propulsion. It just hops around. And because of that so do our emotions and our visual senses of the film. One instant I'm laughing comfortably at Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen having genuine fun unlike the rest of the cast and the next I'm crying myself to sleep listening to Hugh Jackman croon yet another endless, incredibly sad, repetitive tune about something...I'm either crying at Anne Hathaway for caring, cringing at Russell Crowe's inability to carry a single note of anything, or guffawing at Hugh Jackman's good intentions. The story never gives me something to latch onto or truly care about. And a lot of that is because Hooper doesn't really know what he's doing. There are some shots that are astounding and clearly him attempting to be grand and epic. Big sweeping camera movements that glide from high up in the clouds directly into the disgusting face of some poor French bloke. And then there's Hooper's trademark empty space shots, which in The King's Speech were fine. But here, they're incredibly distracting and I really don't get the point of them. Hooper needed to choose one direction or another. Either the movie was going to be a big grand old-fashioned musical epic, which could've been cool. Or the movie was going to be a small intimate and brutal depiction of real time events, which could've been cool too. Instead we get a huge mishmash of styles and tones and themes and ideas and nothing ever fits snugly, it's all just an ungainly, unpleasant mess.

Hugh Jackman- He tries and tries and tries desperately hard. And that's sort of the problem. Within the course of the film all I ever saw him doing from scene to scene was attempting to be really good. Hugh Jackman is a good enough actor in his own right, but this material at times is really not for him. Fine, he has a musical theater background. So do a lot of film actors. That doesn't necessarily make him ideal for this movie. He can sing. Most of the time. However, there is a song towards the end of the film that he does, Bring Him Home, and he's way the fuck out of range on it. I'm not a professional music person or a singer or whatever, but even I know when someone's stretching their abilities. It was one of the few times I had to cover my ears in the theater because I just didn't wanna listen anymore. And apparently they had to lower the range on the song to adjust for Jackman's voice, meaning we could've had a glass-shatteringly loud screech of a song if they had kept it as written in the original musical. Be thankful. Be very thankful.

Russell Crowe- Okay. Alright. Here we go. Russell fucking Crowe. I mean...words cannot even...he's an actor. He's one of those nominated a bazillion times Australian actors that Robert Downey Jr. made fun of so very well in Tropic Thunder. I don't like him. At all. In like anything. I mean I can tolerate him all right if the rest of the movie is good. Like The Insider or Master and Commander or American Gangster, hopefully with Man of Steel. But even in those movies, he's really not that impressive. I never ever ever believe him in any of his roles. And I don't know why. He does the accents well enough usually and he emotes moderately well at times. But more often than not, he's just non-existent for me. And Les Miserables is the perfect example. The guy is beyond flat in this movie. Not even approaching one-dimensional. It's literally just Russell Crowe in a funny hat for about 2 1/2 hours. Not once does he have a line or a moment where I believe he's another character. It's actually quite astounding. And then there's his singing voice. My God, Russell, stick to your fucking indie rock band bullshit. If you're into that kind of thing, fine. But don't torture audiences with your complete inability to carry any kind of tune. We laughed at Pierce Brosnan's nasal whine in Mamma Mia! But at least there he was having fun, at least there there was the backup singers that filtered out some of the badness, at least there it was just ABBA songs. And at least there he had like maybe two or three songs he did mostly alone. In Les Miserables, Russell has song after song after song. It's not like Hooper tried to cover up the fact that he couldn't sing. Oh no. Russell has like many many solos and many many long rambling uncomfortable bouts of attempting to emote and convey IMPORTANT lyrics. He just goes on and on. And it's horrible. Just plain horrible.

Anne Hathaway- "What's this?" I said. "Actual acting? Not in this movie!" That was my brain process when I observed Hathaway's incredibly earnest and affecting and emotional and genuine performance. Here was someone who was cast well, who did the raw singing properly, who reined in the mugging and the melodrama, who kept things minimal and quiet. Hooper did well with and by her. It was like a small treat at the center of the film. If you get past the first twenty minutes of Jackman trying too hard and Russell not trying at all, you get actual acting in a movie. Emotions! Stakes! Backstory! Now granted, the script is sparse in the details of Fantine's background, but that's sort of the point. She's meant to be seen as something of a nobody and Hathaway sells that aspect well. But more than that there is something so splendidly wonderful in her performance, something so moving. I Dreamed A Dream is the best of the Les Miserables songs and the most memorable. It sums up everything about the story into an emotionally driven five-minute solo, the centerpiece of the entire film as it defines pretty much everything that comes after. As such, Hathaway's performance is an absolute necessity, it's integral to establishing not only the bulk of the plot but also most of the themes and ideas therein. And she really really sells it. There's so much in her eyes that tells such a complete history of her as a character in the story of the film. It's the perfect supporting performance and is a refreshing aside from the rest of the badness that is Les Miserables.

Amanda Seyfried- She was fine in Mamma Mia and is fine here again. Also a problem though, given how much of an impact Cosette theoretically has on the entire story, she just doesn't leave much of an impression. However I suspect this is more of the fault of the writing than of Seyfried's performance.

Eddie Redmayne- He leaves a surprising emotional crater by the end of the film, primarily because of how well he does with Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, but he suffers character-wise the same forgettable fate as Seyfried.

Helena Bonham Carter & Sacha Baron Cohen- Carter dons the same look and sensibility she did in Sweeney Todd and she and Cohen are clearly the only actors in the movie having fun given the nature of their over-the-top roles. They're the comic relief and that's fine by me after all the maudlin melodrama of the rest of the story.

Samantha Barks- the usual up and coming young actress hired for a big musical to potentially make an impression and be cast in more things after. Also surprisingly, she does well with both the singing and the acting side of things. I look forward to seeing more of her, but, not to sound like a broken record, she goes through the same pushed-to-the-wayside process as Redmayne and Seyfried.

The Production- Costumes, Hair, Makeup, Sets- It's really hard to get this kind of stuff wrong nowadays in this age of historical recreation perfection. So at the very least, Hooper and company get all that right.

The History- One question: what the fuck is the historical context of this movie? I know there are many, many French revolutions that have occurred at different times in the course of the country's history, but in this film nothing is given any kind of background. There's like all of two little subtitles that say where and when we are and give some majestically worded bits about how France is at war with itself or some such nonsense. None of it adds up in terms of knowing what the fuck is supposed to be happening and this is made all the worse by the fact that the movie jumps so awkwardly from one point in history to another without any rhyme or reason. Halfway through it cuts to many years later and a revolution is happening that has had no dramatic buildup at all. I mean this quite literally. The movie shifts its focus and plot completely midway through- suddenly it all becomes about the importance of this battle and this revolution. It’s all absurdly arbitrary and random and confusing.

The Back-Story- As I just stated, the structure of the film is weird and not considerate at all towards people who may not be familiar with the story. I make the argument sometimes that people coming to Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part II not having seen the first films should expect to be confused and that the experience watching it will be marginally less interesting and compelling because they don't have a familiarity with the material. By film number eight, the writers and director shouldn't have to constantly be playing a game of catch-up with the prologues. Les Mis is such a dense and complicated book and story in terms of detail plot developments and characters and the like and the musical is no less complex. Adaptation is no easy thing, in fact I'm not sure I plan on ever adapting any kind of previous material into a screenplay. The process is too daunting for me and I'm more interested in sticking with my own original ideas anyway. Never say never however. This is not an excuse however. This specific film production of Les Mis had been in development for many years ever since the release and success of the musical itself. As such, one would expect the amount of time and effort put forth to the screenplay to be significant. Instead, what the movie ends up being is a giant rush of small plot details thrown together minute after minute. Things happen in this film so quickly and without so much as a brief emotional nod to the development of a character or a scene. We are treated to death after death, depressing sequence of infinite woe after depressing sequence of infinite woe, and not once does the movie stop to breathe or give us a second to consider what's happening or how or why we should care. I think of the very first scene. The CGI-lathered shot that pushes in from above and drops through the docks to where we first meet Jackman and Crowe. Jackman and his fellow prisoners just kind of start singing about how shitty their lives are and Jackman just kind of tells everything that's happened to him up until this moment in the story with a few lyrics. It's not even good exposition. One of the things that can be said in favor of musicals is that they can convey the back-story of a character in an imaginative way with a select few lines of singing. Queen Latifah in Chicago tells us exactly who she is with a witty and clever song without outright telling us who she is. It's a grand and interesting introduction. In Les Mis everybody just says what's on their mind. How is that interesting? Why should I care? What's compelling about songs that are so literal in their simplicity? And beyond that, there's the simple problem of the film still not having any genuine back-story to its characters. They just kind of exist at random points in their lives, tell us how they feel and think in those instances, and move on from there. There's no emotional flow, there are no stakes, there's just...nothing.

Jean Valjean- What an insufferable and uninteresting character. I'm sorry, but he is. He's so absurdly selfless in his actions. He's had a shitty life in the past, fine. But we never see a fucking second of it. He just tells us. Why should I believe him? He cries and bemoans his existence and all I think to myself is, grow the fuck up already. One of the main 'subjects' of the movie is the injustice put upon the lower classes and what perspective do we get on that idea? Not much. Sure we see the squalor of the poor and the awful life Hathaway leads, but the movie itself is so bogged down in getting each of its plot developments across in as short a span of time as possible that we never attach ourselves to anyone or anything on any significant level. We don't CARE. Life's a bitch, huh? Is that your point? We all have to suffer? Fine. Whoop-de-shit. Valjean just kind of decides to do things. He figures out who Eponine is and suddenly he's all "I'm gonna raise her as my own." Why? Yes, fine, he wants to make up to Fantine for making a mistake, but why THIS action? What's his motivation to do THIS thing? This is one of the most fundamental things in screenwriting- establishing and clearly conveying the reason why the protagonist is doing what he/she is doing throughout the story. Valjean is just so confused and muddled in what he wants.

Javert- What the fuck was up with his goofy ass death? Plummet...SPLAT. And again- what's his motivation? Okay fine, he's a determined police guy. But WHY? TO WHAT END? What's his fucking deal? And then the ending. Not his death, but the shit right before it. He just kind of decides to give up I guess. Um...why? What changed between him and Valjean? He saw like five minutes of the revolution and gave Gavroche a medal for being an insufferable little shit and dying in a goofy way. Which is ALSO an unintentionally hilarious couple of minutes. I mean I barely knew he was supposed to be a somewhat important character and suddenly he's all "Gotta try and save the day in an incredibly stupid and supposedly heart-wrenching scene of horror and drama." And then Javert just kind of decides, "War is wrong." And gives the kid a fucking medal. WHY? HE DIED. HE'S NOT BRAVE. HE'S DUMB. 

Thenardiers- what fantastically fun and funny and creepy and awesome characters. They're just so...French. But also the most entertaining parts of Les Mis. They bring such life and energy. And then they get weirdly pissed away in a goofy and random ending which makes little to no sense. Pity.

Marius & Cosette & Eponine- I've had it. Officially. I'm done with romantic triangles that are shoe-horned in randomly and without motivation or necessity. They're tired and dull. And in Les Mis they're at they're worst between Marius and Cosette and Eponine. There is literally maybe five seconds between Marius and Cosette and suddenly they're in love. Is the story of Les Mis really a place for such a cliched piece of shit? Shouldn't someone like Tom Hooper, who handled Helen Mirren's love life in Elizabeth I, know better? And its development throughout the second half of the film is so underdone and so underwhelming, it's astounding. I don't for a second believe the relationship that's supposed to be brewing between the two. Eponine on the other hand is at least marginally more interesting from a character perspective, or at the very least, more compelling, and most of that appeal comes from a rather remarkable performance by Samantha Barks. And then, of course, Hooper fouls that up as well, by giving Eponine an amazingly silly death where she physically pulls a gun toward her own guts in order to prevent Marius from being shot. She'd rather kill herself than point the weapon in a different direction.

Funny, at the end of this nearly three hour monstrosity, I felt the exact same way.