Les Misérables: a famously good story, defended well by its cast. Anne Hathaway indeed shines the brightest in her small role. Despite those efforts, however, this is not a well-told story. A cardinal sin for a musical, the songs are not consistently interesting. More relevant, however, is that this must be one of the most irritating films visually I’ve seen in quite some time. The shot selection by director Tom Hooper is simply poor: by either shooting most songs with shaky, shallow close-ups or using lightning fast edits, not a thing is punctuated. He ends up stealing the good work done by the actors from under their feet.