''Les Misérables'' is a 2019 French
crime thriller film
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
directed by
Ladj Ly
Ladj Ly (; born 19 March 1980 in Paris) is a French film director and screenwriter. He won a Jury Prize in Cannes Film Festival for ''Les Misérables'' in 2019. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
Biography
Ly's ...
in his full-length feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Ly, Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti, based on Ly's 2017 short film of the same name. Manenti stars alongside
Damien Bonnard
Damien Bonnard (born 22 July 1978) is a French actor
Filmography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonnard, Damien
1978 births
Living people
French male film actors
21st-century French male actors
People from Alès
Most P ...
, Djebril Zonga, Issa Percia, Al-Hassan Ly, Steve Tientcheu, Almany Kanoute and Nizar Ben Fatma.
The film, set in the
commune
A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to:
Administrative-territorial entities
* Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township
** Communes of ...
of
Montfermeil
Montfermeil () is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.
Montfermeil is famous as the location of Thénardiers' inn in ''Les Misérables''. It has made the headlines due to troubles in its soc ...
in the aftermath of the
2018 FIFA World Cup
The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national Association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awa ...
, is based on a real-life occurrence of police violence which took place in the city on 14 October 2008, and was observed and filmed by Ly. The story follows several characters within the commune, as a theft from a teenager spirals into the threat of a large crisis. The film's title is a reference to the
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
1862 novel
of the same name, written in Montfermeil and partially set in it; in the novel, Montfermeil is also the setting of the meeting of
Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean () is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel ''Les Misérables''. The story depicts the character's struggle to lead a normal life and redeem himself after serving a 19-year-long prison sentence for stealing bread to feed his ...
and
Cosette
Cosette () is a fictional character in the 1862 novel ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo and in the many adaptations of the story for stage, film, and television. Her birth name, Euphrasie, is only mentioned briefly. As the orphaned child of an u ...
, a girl abused by her adoptive parents. The film depicts abuses against poor citizens, especially teenagers of sub-Saharan African or Maghrebi ethnicities, thus stressing the continuity in the fate of the poor in Montfermeil.
It had its world premiere on 15 May 2019 at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
, where it won the
Jury Prize
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England durin ...
. It was released in France on 20 November 2019 and received critical acclaim, earning twelve nominations at the
César Awards
The César Award is the national film award of France. It is delivered in the ' ceremony and was first awarded in 1976. The nominations are selected by the members of twelve categories of filmmaking professionals and supported by the French Min ...
and winning four including
Best Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
. Among other honors, it was selected as the
French entry for the
Best International Feature Film at the
92nd Academy Awards
The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 2019 and took place on February 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, beginning at 5:00 ...
, eventually achieving the nomination.
Plot
The film begins with images of the crowd in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
celebrating the victory of the
French team at the
2018 FIFA World Cup
The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national Association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awa ...
in the
Avenue des Champs-Élysées
Avenue or Avenues may refer to:
Roads
* Avenue (landscape), traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees, in the shifted sense a tree line itself, or some of boulevards (also without trees)
* Avenue Road, Bangalore
* Avenue Road, Lo ...
, which had been perceived and celebrated in France as a moment of brotherhood between people of different social classes or ethnicities.
Soon after, Stéphane Ruiz, a police officer who recently moved to Paris and joined the anti-crime brigade, is assigned to work with squad leader Chris and brigadier Gwada on duty in the nearby city of
Montfermeil
Montfermeil () is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.
Montfermeil is famous as the location of Thénardiers' inn in ''Les Misérables''. It has made the headlines due to troubles in its soc ...
. Chris often aggressively abuses his power on teenagers, with Gwada complacent with that abuse; while he feels unease, Stéphane doesn't interfere. Meanwhile, Issa, a known
juvenile delinquent
Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person ...
, steals Johnny, a lion cub, from a circus, causing its owner Zorro to go to the local community leader known as "the Mayor" and threaten to return with firearms if Johnny is not returned. Chris and his squadron are tasked with finding and retrieving the cub.
One of Issa's friends takes a picture of Issa with the cub and posts it on
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
, leading Chris to find out that Issa is the culprit. They chase, capture and handcuff him, but he claims that the cub had run away. Issa's friends then attack the three officers, throwing things at them to stop them from taking Issa in. When Issa tries to run away, Gwada, having accidentally teargassed himself during the chase, shoots him in the face with a
flash-ball
Flash-Ball is a registered trademark for a less-lethal hand-held projectile launcher developed by French hunting firearms manufacturer Verney-Carron. Flash-Ball is intended to be used by riot police as an alternative to lethal firearms, bean bag ...
. Issa's friends scatter, but the squadron realize that they have been filmed by a drone, which escapes. While Stéphane wants to take a badly wounded Issa to a hospital, Chris and Gwada refuse, and instead the trio take him with them in their search for the drone's owner.
The trio arrive at a local neighborhood contact of Chris, leaving Issa in their care and using information given to them by that contact to find Buzz, the teenager the drone belongs to, forcing him to flee before he can upload the video. Buzz, who still carries the drone's memory card, escapes the squadron and takes shelter with Salah, a restaurant owner and key member of the local
Islamic community
' (; ar, أمة ) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from ' ( ), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history.
It is a synonym for ' ...
. Both the squadron and the Mayor, having found out, arrive at Salah's restaurant. After a tense confrontation during which Chris attempts to illegally arrest Buzz, Ruiz convinces Salah to give him the memory card, claiming that Issa's shooting was just an accident.
After recovering Issa and the cub (which happened to be spotted near them), the squadron takes the two to the circus. Although Issa is made to apologize, Zorro attempts to lock him as well as the cub inside a cage with a fully grown lion, scaring Issa into wetting himself and almost making Stéphane shoot the lion, until Issa is eventually let go. Deciding that Issa has learned his lesson, Chris drops him off and warns him not to tell anyone what happened, and, if asked about his injury, to say that he slipped and fell. In the evening, the characters involved in that day's event seemingly return to their normal lives, some with visible signs of distress and doubt. Issa, who had been told earlier that his father did not want him back home because of his behavior, sits alone on a ruined couch, traumatized. Later that night, Ruiz meets Gwada in a bar and tells him that he knows that a flash-ball cannot be fired by accident, and that Gwada had therefore intentionally shot Issa. Gwada blames his stress and the children for overwhelming him, and Stéphane, while unconvinced, leaves Gwada with the card, telling him to "do what you gotta do".
The next day, the squadron, while on patrol, gets attacked by a small group led by Issa. They chase them, falling into Issa's trap and ending up assaulted by a much larger group of teenagers, leaving them trapped from all sides in a stairwell and fighting for their lives. Chris is wounded when a bottle breaks on his face, and the backup car Stéphane radios for gets immediately destroyed by the teenagers, forcing the backup policemen to flee. They also attack the Mayor's office, and end up clubbing him and throwing him down a set of stairs. Stéphane pounds on the nearest door, begging for help, which happens to be the door to Buzz's apartment; however, Buzz further locks the door. Issa lights a molotov cocktail and prepares to finish the squadron off with it, leading Stéphane to point his gun at him and warn him not to. The screen fades to black as both Issa and Stéphane try to decide what to do next, and a quote from
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
's ''
Les Misérables
''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.
In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original ...
'' appears: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."
Cast
*
Damien Bonnard
Damien Bonnard (born 22 July 1978) is a French actor
Filmography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonnard, Damien
1978 births
Living people
French male film actors
21st-century French male actors
People from Alès
Most P ...
as
Brigadier
Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. In ...
Stéphane Ruiz
*Alexis Manenti as Chris
*Djebril Zonga as Gwada
*Issa Perica as Issa
*Al-Hassan Ly as Buzz
*Steve Tientcheu as The Mayor
*Almamy Kanoute as Salah
*Nazar Ben Fatma as La Pince
*Raymond Lopez as Zorro
*
Jeanne Balibar
Jeanne Balibar (born 13 April 1968) is a French actress and singer.
Life and career
Balibar was born in Paris, the daughter of Marxist philosopher Étienne Balibar and physicist Françoise Balibar.
She started her career as a student in the ...
as The Commissioner
Production
In October 2018, it was announced Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti and Djebril Zonga had joined the cast of the film, with Ladj Ly directing from a screenplay he wrote alongside Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti.
Release
The film had its world premiere at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
on 15 May 2019. Shortly after,
Amazon Studios
Amazon Studios is an American television and film producer and distributor that is a subsidiary of Amazon. It specializes in developing television series and distributing and producing films. It was started in late 2010. Content is distributed th ...
acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. It also screened at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...
on 10 September 2019. It was released in France on 20 November 2019 by Le Pacte. It was released in the United States on 10 January 2020.
Reception
Box office
''Les Misérables'' grossed $330,181 in the United States and Canada and $18,8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $19.2 million,
against a production budget of about $2.5 million.
Critical response
, of the reviews compiled on review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
are positive, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "''Les Misérables'' transcends its unwieldy story with compelling ideas and an infectious energy that boils over during a thrilling final act." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Political reactions
''
Le Journal du dimanche
''Le Journal du dimanche'' (English: ''Sunday's newspaper'') is a French weekly newspaper published on Sundays in France.
History and profile
''Le Journal du Dimanche'' was created by Pierre Lazareff in 1948. He was managing editor of ''France ...
'' revealed that
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
was "upset by the accuracy" of ''Les Misérables'', so much so that he "asked the government to hurry to find ideas and act to improve living conditions in the
banlieue
In France, the term banlieue (; ) refers to a suburb of a large city. Banlieues are divided into autonomous administrative entities and do not constitute part of the city proper. For instance, 80% of the inhabitants of the Paris Metropolitan Are ...
s".
Jacques Dion, in ''
Marianne
Marianne () has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution, as a personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason, as well as a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty.
Marianne is displayed i ...
'', said that "
acron
Acron ( grc-gre, Ἄκρων), son of Xenon, was a Medicine in ancient Greece, Greek physician born at Agrigentum (Gk. Acragas).
Life
The exact dates of Acron is not known; but, as he is mentioned as being contemporary with Empedocles, who died ...
must never have heard of the for the banlieues that he himself had abandoned."
People such as
Jean-Louis Borloo
Jean-Louis Marie Borloo (; born 7 April 1951) is a French politician who served as president of the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) from 2012 to 2014. He also was Minister of the Economy, Finance and Employment in 2007 and Minister of ...
support the film,
and
Valérie Pécresse
Valérie Pécresse (; born Roux, 14 July 1967) is a French politician who has served as President of the Regional Council of Île-de-France since 2015. A member of The Republicans (LR), she previously served as Minister of Higher Education and ...
wrote in a tweet: "Proud that the region supported #LesMiserables a real film about the banlieue, which alerts us to the absolute necessity of a plan for the banlieues which does away with ghetto neighbourhoods, with a real ten year strategy!"
Awards and nominations
See also
* ''
La Haine
''La Haine'' (, ; released in the United States as ''Hate'') is a 1995 French crime drama film written, co-edited, and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Starring Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé and Saïd Taghmaoui, the film chronicles a day and nig ...
'', a film with a similar theme and setting
*
*
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miserables, Les
2019 films
2019 drama films
2019 thriller films
2019 thriller drama films
2010s French-language films
French thriller films
French thriller drama films
Films set in 2018
French crime drama films
Films set in Île-de-France
Films set in Paris
Films shot in Île-de-France
Films shot in Paris
Amazon Studios films
Best Film César Award winners
Films about juvenile delinquency
Films about police officers
Films about police misconduct
Features based on short films
Drone films
2010s French films