JEAN VALJEAN

France, 2025, 98 minutes, Colour.

Gregory Gadebois, Bernard Campan, Alexandra Lamy, Isabelle Carre, Dominique Pinon, Romane Libert.

Directed by Eric Besnard.

The story of Jean Valjean stealing the Bishop’s candlesticks in Les Miserables is very well known and the episode has appeared in all film versions.

This, rather brief, film begins four days after Jean Valjean has been released from the galleys. He is wandering the countryside, seeking food, knocking on doors, angrily rejected because he is a convict. An old woman recommends that he knock on a particular door, that of the Bishop, he given the name Myriel and the nickname Bienvenue/Welcome. He lives with his sick sister, not a believer, and their maid, highly self-righteous and instantly condemning the convict. She is fearful and judgemental.

Jean Valjean is welcomed by the Bishop, sharing their simple meal, the maid reluctant to serve, the Bishop welcoming, the sister showing some concern. During the night, Jean Valjean imagines what he could do, brutally kill the Bishop in his peaceful bed, attack the sister, kill the maid. But, he does not. He steals the silver cutlery, embossed with the Bishop’s seal, but is caught by the police and returned. The Bishop speaks of the cutlery as a gift and goes to get the candles, saying that Jean Valjean has forgotten to take them.

Isabelle Carre as the Bishop’s sister is an interesting and unexpected character, ill, disappointed in life, lacking faith in God, supportive of her brother and his charity. Alexandra Lamy as the maid shows how an upright character and be blinded by prejudice.

Writer-director, Eric Besnard, has used the first two books of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables but then has “freely adapted” the story, giving an extensive back story for the Bishop, married, travelling in Italy, the loss of his wife, subsequent anger and hatred, becoming a cleric, becoming a bishop, relishing his status and pomp. But he meets a hermit, a rebel whom he is to condemn but who accepts him, enables him to find grace and change. He then visits the sick in a crowded infectious hospital, offers the Bishop’s Palace as the hospital and he and his sister live in the old building, a life of poverty and charity, and able to pass on his experience of grace to Jean Valjean who, as we know, will be transformed into one of the great saviour figures of literature.

Later in the film there is a back story to Jean Valjean himself, the poverty, the stealing of the loaf, the arrest, and some vividly brutal sequences especially in quarries. Gregory J Dwyer is a rather hulking presence as Valjean, eliciting audience sympathy with the prejudice against him but not a sympathetic personality. And, at the end, is confrontation with the little boy with the call-in and his mean-minded behaviour, it is repellent – but, of course, the occasion for a new awareness, repentance, a change of heart.

The screenplay is rather rhetorical, especially with the voice-over commentary, making the film something like a homily cinema experience – and a reminder of the urging of Pope Francis that shepherds should have the smell of the sheep, go out to the existential peripheries, a message urged on by Pope Leo the XIV and his first major letter, Dilexi te (I have loved you).

1. The importance of Victor Hugo and Les Miserables? 19^th-century, 20^th century, the various film versions, television, 21^st-century?
2. The popularity of the episode of the Bishop’s candlesticks? The writer-director and his “free adaptation” of the first four books of the novel? The basic story, the Bishop, kindness to Jean Valjean, the welcome, the theft, the police and the return, the Bishop and his giving them as a gift, the effect on, Jean Valjean, his transformation, his future and his being a saviour-figure?
3. Four days after his release from the galleys, wandering the countryside, his impact, size, poverty, reputation as a convict, the cafe and his being ousted, knocking on doors, begging, rejected? The old lady, advising him to visit the Bishop? Knocking on the door, the maid, unwilling, critical, condemnatory, despising him? The welcome from the Bishop, his sister, at the table, the food, the cutlery embossed, the conversation?
4. The film amplifying the story of the Bishop, seeing him with the patients in the crowded hospital, harsh situations, his giving over the Episcopal Palace for the hospital, his leaving the hospital, poor conditions? The flashbacks to his personal story, marriage, travel to Italy, death of his wife, his anger, resentment, entering the clergy, becoming ambitious, a bishop, enjoying the pomp and circumstance, his visit to the rebel, intending to condemn him, the conversation, the impact of the rebel, communicating grace, his change, travel and the house?
5. The Bishop’s sister, unwell, her story, not believing, the conversation about faith? The trust of her brother, welcoming Jean Valjean? The contrast with the response of the maid, serving, reluctant, condemning?
6. The night, Jean Valjean imagining attacking the Bishop in bed, taking the cutlery, the confrontation with the sister, her death, confronting the maid, her falling to her death? But his not taking that option, his escape with the cutlery, arrested, the police returning him?
7. The response of the Bishop, the cutlery symbol of wealth, his letting it go, welcoming Jean Valjean, the reaction of the sister, the maid, and telling him he should have taken the candlesticks? The police leaving? The impact on Jean Valjean? His leaving?
8. Wandering, the encounter with the young boy, the boy’s enthusiastic, his coin, Jean Valjean with his shoe on it, refusing the boy, the boy upset and fleeing, Jean Valjean coming to his senses, trying to find the boy, moment of insight, repentance, hope for the future?