It’s Les Miserables, the latest film version of Victor Hugo’s classic, 19th century, French novel. As told by Hugo, and muddled by the film, the story is a grand vision of Christian redemption. It begins with the paroled convict Jean Valjean stealing from a bishop who responds with forgiveness and protects Valjean from the police. Valjean then flees, breaking his parole. He changes both his name and his life. Eight years later he has become the owner of a factory and the benevolent mayor of a small town. Eventually he is recognized as a convict by Javert, a police inspector. Valjean flees again, this time to Paris, taking with him his fortune and Cosette, the young, orphaned daughter of a prostitute. Nine years pass in Paris, and Cosette, a young woman now, falls in love with Marius, a member of a student group planning a political rebellion. Soon Cosette and Valjean are caught up in the rebellion, and Javert reappears to again threaten Valjean’s world.

Whether you’re a fan of the novel or the musical, or whether you just want to see another good costume drama, the new Les Miserables is certain to disappoint. Not only does the film do injustice to the original story, it is simply unfocused and bland. Danish director Bille August (Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Pelle the Conqueror) and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias (Death and the Maiden, Fearless) have played up the story’s natural melodrama to an irritating pitch and replaced real emotional tension and grand themes with weak dialogue and dreary conflicts.

Granted, Les Miserables cannot have been easy to translate to the screen. Yglesias has spoken of the challenge presented by "the disappearance of the hero Valjean for four hundred pages and Javert's departure from the narrative for some seven hundred." Add to this the problem of two complex story lines—the two conflicts between Valjean and Javert—each with their own climaxes, and it becomes obvious that such a project would be impossible without taking drastic creative license. But one finds little creativity here.

At the very least, the filmmakers could have retained Hugo’s central purpose for writing the novel, which was to demonstrate the process of redemption within a single human heart. To Valjean, his redemption meant two things: first, that he should change his life, and second that he learn to love (for, Christianity says, love gives meaning to a good life). It is this last step that the film ignores. Valjean is meant to learn the meaning of love through Cosette, through her innocence and affection, and through her dependence on him. We should feel a certain magic in their relationship. Instead the film gives us a dysfunctional, one-parent family—a spoiled, whining girl and her crusty old dad. And perhaps the shallowness of this relationship helps to invalidate the love between Cosette and Marius, which comes across as nothing more than a monotonous infatuation.

Once this mistake is made with Valjean and Cosette, the film casts about for cliches to fill the gaping emotional void. Hugo’s delicate fabric of relationships and character motivations is all but discarded, and the goal of the film is no longer to see Valjean made whole. All that is left is to put Cosette and Marius together and to show Valjean triumphing over Javert. Only the untimely student rebellion stands in the way. Marius, instead of running away with Cosette, chooses to risk his life in a hopeless political melee, and it is up to Valjean to save the day.

In the end, this Les Miserables can only be seen as a waste—a lifeless, uninspired script ruining what was, in fact, a great opportunity. Some elements of the film certainly promised something better, such as the exceptional casting. No better choices could have been made than Liam Neeson for Valjean and Geoffrey Rush for Javert. And the women, Claire Danes and Uma Thurman, fill the roles of Cosette and Fantine as well as the insipid dialogue allows. August’s direction also captures the occasional moment with a powerful, startling image—as in an early scene with Valjean saving a man pinned under a cart, and in Javert’s final scene. One simply wishes that the script could have taken this potential and harnessed it for something good.