France’s latest trip into Victor Hugo territory has unveiled its first teaser, and one thing is immediately clear: this Les Misérables isn’t bursting into song.
The first footage from director Fred Cavayé’s new adaptation swaps soaring show tunes for prison cells, sword fights and revolutionary chaos. The teaser opens with a young Jean Valjean enduring the brutal years of his imprisonment before fast-forwarding to his new life and the inevitable pursuit by Inspector Javert, played by Tahar Rahim. Vincent Lindon plays the older Valjean. Fans expecting Anne Hathaway-style ballads or Hugh Jackman belting out “Who Am I?” may be disappointed. Everyone else can relax: there’s plenty of action here, and thankfully, nobody sings.
Instead, the teaser is really a showcase for spectacle. Sweeping aerial shots of 19th-century Paris, sprawling period sets, packed streets, military formations and smoke-filled battle scenes dominate the footage, underscoring the scale of what is one of the most ambitious French productions ever mounted. More than introducing characters, the trailer is selling production value, making the case that this Les Misérables is as much historical epic as literary adaptation.
That approach fits the ambitions behind the $40+ million production, one of the biggest French-language features ever financed. As The Hollywood Reporter previously reported, the film represents France’s attempt to reclaim one of its defining literary classics after decades in which the globally successful stage musical — and its Oscar-winning 2012 screen adaptation — largely came to define Hugo’s masterpiece for international audiences.
Producer Dimitri Rassam has argued that while millions know Les Misérables through Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s musical, relatively few have experienced Hugo’s original novel on screen. Cavayé’s adaptation aims to change that with a version rooted in the author’s text rather than the Broadway score, emphasizing historical realism, political upheaval and the sweeping adventure elements that have often been overshadowed by the musical’s enduring popularity.
Leading the all-star French cast, alongside Lindon as Jean Valjean and Rahim as Javert, is Noémie Merlant as Fantine, Camille Cottin and Benjamin Lavernhe as the Thénardiers, and Vassili Schneider as Marius.
Whether Cavayé’s Les Misérables can supplant the musical in the public imagination remains to be seen. But if the teaser is any indication, France is making a very expensive case that Hugo’s epic can still command the big screen without a single chorus of “Do You Hear the People Sing?”
Check out the trailer below.
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