By HANNAH ELLIOTT, Robinson High

Grade: ***, 3/5 asterisks

Every year there is the crop of winter-break movies that draw huge crowds, and people who almost never go to movies are found munching popcorn in the theater. These films usually go on to be the most memorable movies of the year.

This Christmas’ biggest box office release has also followed moviegoers home with its soundtrack, which has wiggled its place to the top of the charts and into our iPod’s Top 25 Most Played list.
Though I have huge respect for the cast singing live throughout the filming, and that alone deserves major recognition, I have to admit I was one of those annoying people who laughed and groaned at horribly inappropriate times in the movie. I would have been embarrassed if the lights had been on and people could have seen my extreme eye rolling. Looking back, it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the movie, but the constant singing was so monotonous at times I think I became a little delirious, to the point of involuntary laughter.

The album takes the highlights and butchers the almost three-hour-long movie into an hour-long collection of 20 songs. Though this album covers big fan-favorites such as I Dreamed a Dream sung by the flawless Anne Hathaway, and the comic relief song, Master of the House sung by funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen and classic Helena Bonham Carter, I immediately noticed something was missing. I am not Les Mis obsessed, but I reacted with a snobbish annoyance when I discovered Lovely Ladies was excluded from the soundtrack. Lovely Ladies was an extremely catchy and fun sing-along and I’m still a bit confused about why it got the boot.

One Day More is one of my favorites because it combines all the good violin parts and the meshing of each cast member’s singing is flawless, even goose-bump inducing.

I won’t even waste my time fawning over I Dreamed a Dream, because I think we can all do without another rant about how perfect Hathaway is and how heart-wrenching the song is. Everyone agrees, nothing more needs to be said.

British heartthrob Eddie Redmayne pours his heart out, his dreaminess evident in each song. Redmayne makes the girls swoon, especially with the melancholy track Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.

Take a listen to the soundtrack and there you go. In a nutshell, it will be as if you have seen the movie.
Listening to all 20 tracks in order takes you on the complicated and tortured journey of the miserable people after the French Revolution, quicker and more to the point than the three-hour musical. If you like being told a story through the lyrics of a song, this album is the ultimate storybook, and a bit more bearable way to understand the Les Misérables phenomenon, especially if you aren’t a fan of odd conversational singing.