Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

How one takes in this new French film Les Misérables, in U.S. theaters currently, will differ slightly depending on what context is at hand, what kind of literary as well as motion picture history can be drawn from, if at all—not to mention French history itself, both centuries back and a decade and a half back. Citizens of France and particularly Paris, with a working memory of the 2005 riots that occurred there, have no doubt had a unique point of view on this film.

My own background knowledge of all these elements is limited, to say the least. This Les Misérables is different from the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo (easily one of the most famous works of French literature ever written), or the stage musical adaptation by the same name that premiered in France in 1980, translated and expanded in English for a London premiere in 1985 and first premiered on Broadway in 1986, which I have also never seen. I merely saw the 2012 movie musical adaptation starring Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman, and although it was one of countless adaptations, with its live on-set singing, it stood apart.

This Les Misérables stands apart as well, but for entirely different reasons. This is not even close to a direct adaptation, although there are clearly thematic through lines. Fundamentally, though, its only connection to Victor Hugo is that it shares the title, and it is set in the same neighborhood Hugo lived in when he wrote the novel. These are very deliberate choices on the part of French director Ladj Ly, who uses subtle means to evoke national pride, history, injustice, and police brutality.

The police brutality is a particularly key element, and much of the film’s run time there is an expectation of violence that never comes . . . until it does. It never gets all that graphic, but it gets its point across. And it involves a reckless teenager caught in the crosshairs, who, much like the original Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s novel, receives punishment that is far out of proportion to his crimes.

After opening on scenes of national unity and celebration when France won the World Cup, crosscut with the opening titles, it takes a little while for a story even to take shape. We follow three police officers, one of them on his first day after transferring to the city to be closer to his child who lives with his ex-wife, making rounds in this gritty Paris suburb and generally puffing their chests and occasionally harassing people. They do a “police check” on a group of young girls just waiting for a bus at a bus stop, and when one of them tries to record them with her phone, the officer with the shortest fuse grabs her phone and hurls it at the sidewalk.

It’s relevant to note that two of these cops are white, one of them black, and when a confrontation with a group of kids escalates to a dangerous degree, it’s the black cop who goes overboard and injures one of them, also a black kid. I know nothing of class, immigration issues, or race relations and the many nuances thereof that are no doubt specific to France, but it is almost curious that director Ladj Ly puts no obvious element of racial tension in his film—only tension between native French citizens and immigrants (though most of the latter are Muslim and black), and particularly between the residents of this suburb and law enforcement. A story like this would absolutely play out differently if made in the U.S., but here, the otherwise most-hotheaded cop is all about protecting the other cops on his “team,” and the story that proceeds from here is about retrieving the memory card from a drone they notice hovering overhead, having recorded the entire incident.

We see that drone earlier in the film, controlled by another young black boy in the neighborhood, using it to peep into the windows of teenage girls in one of the wide, blocky high-rise apartment buildings. It therefore comes as no surprise that the drone becomes a key figure in the plotting to come. There is a bit of a clever trick to the cinematography here, though, because instead of just being yet another movie with obvious drone shots for nice effect, these camera angles actually serve the story. It doesn’t hurt that the shots also happen to work very well on an aesthetic level.

This all builds to a predictably violent confrontation, after some odd asides including the kidnapping of a local circus troupe’s lion cub. Ly stops the story short in the midst of an individual standoff, leaving us to decide for ourselves where it goes from there, but making it clear that all parties involved have created an untenable situation that cannot possibly end well for any of them. The richness of history, both long ago and recent, very much informs the action here, but this Les Misérables offers plenty of food for thought either way.

*Misguided police tactics: they’re everywhere.*

Overall: B+