In his classic novel, Les Misérables, Victor Hugo wrote that there is nothing more beautiful than holiness, contemplating  — throughout the work — “the beauty of goodness.” The recent film adaptation — that is based more on the subsequent musical inspired by Hugo’s book — conveys the beauty of faith, holiness,  and goodness against the moral poverty and misery of the darkest dimensions of life. Catholic authors and pundits are (rightfully) hailing the film as a must-see masterpiece. Raymond Arroyo has commented: “Tom Hooper’s bold ‘Les Misérables’ is not just a cinematic achievement, but a soul-stirring experience that lingers like the melodies it contains. Hugh Jackman’s Christ-haunted Jean Valjean is a revelation. The redemptive heart of the landmark musical has been amplified and the impact is deeply moving. It is so refreshing to see a film set in a consistent moral universe that connects on so many levels. Seeing ‘Les Mis’ you will ‘hear the people sing’ in the cineplex—and no doubt, on their way home as well.”

“Every bishop, priest, pastor and cleric should be begging their people to go see this movie. It really is about the redemptive nature of man’s redemptive quest. It’s about the Cross and embracing it and putting yourself aside for the sake of others.”

Similarly, Christopher West has written that he has been waiting long for the musical to be made into a movie, understanding the power that this “sacred work of art” has in reaching our culture:

“Les Mis sings gloriously of the hope of the Gospel itself. And that’s one of the things I simply love about this musical: it’s a thoroughly sacred work of art that has been whole-heartedly embraced by the secular world. For the ‘miserable ones’ of this story, redemption is real, heaven is real, and ‘to love another person is to see the face of God…’ You ‘have to tell this story from the point of view that God exists,’ says Tom Hooper, the film’s director. It simply doesn’t work otherwise.” 

When I saw the movie, part of me was stunned that Hollywood made this film, as it is a motion picture that, in many ways, is nothing short than a vibrant spectacle of Catholic spirituality, virtue, and beauty. Poignant, at times sad and melancholic, yet filled with the hope of the Cross and the power of divine Mercy and fortitude in faith, the movie presents Catholic nuns, a bishop, Christian symbolism — crucifixes, rosaries, churches, convents — prayer and piety in such a wonderfully spiritual and vibrant way, understanding — like few movies do — how to convey the interior dimensions of faith, charity, and hope, placed in the forefront of the human drama.

Anne Hathaway is being praised as delivering a monumental performance, a sure-to-be Oscar-winning achievement, in her portrayal of Fantine, a poor young mother who is driven to despair and is exploited, coerced into the world of prostitution to feed her hungry daughter. When Hathaway sings “I Dreamed a Dream” the song pierces the heart, it — like her performance — is heart-wrenching, reaching deep into the innermost core of the wounds of her character’s soul.

While her character ultimately experiences the grace of redemption, it is Hugh Jackman’s Jean Valjean who is the driving force behind that redemptive grace, behind God’s saving goodness in her poor life. Jean Valjean experienced Christ’s divine Mercy in the most powerful way after living a supposedly ruined life. Through his own pains, the pains of his past, and the sacred salvation that brought him out of those pains — giving him a second chance — he became sensitized to the pleas of the suffering. He does not look at the prostitute with contempt, but in a God-like way, he looks at her from inside, from within her soul, realizing that it was despair, difficulty, injustice — not to mention the motherly goodness of wanting to feed her poverty-stricken child — that led to this life of personal misery for her.

The great acheivement of the film is in doing something that perhaps no modern Hollywood motion picture has ever tried to do: portraying the salvific virtue of Catholic spirituality, of the depths of a supernatural God whose all-seeing-eye and righteousness has not abandoned the world, despite all its poverty; whose saints remain, and it is their lives, their love, that become a tangible manifestation of His presence. As the lyrics to one of the concluding songs explains: “To love another person is to see the face of God…”

Victor Hugo’s book opens with about a hundred pages describing the character of a local bishop, who seems more like the saintly Curé of Ars, Jean Maria Vianney, than the usual depiction of a clerical figure. The world, obsessed with power, money, ambition, does not understand the holy, Hugo explained. “They confuse heaven’s radiant stars with a duck’s footprint left in the mud.” 

Yet in his book, the author understood the holy, and the radiance of sanctity in making life beautiful. Describing the bishop’s sister, a dear woman touched by the light of the divine, Hugo wrote:

“Even when young, she had not been pretty; she had very prominent blue eyes and a long pinched nose, but her whole face and person, as we said at the outset, breathed an indescribable goodness. She had been preordained to meekness, but faith, charity, hope — the three virtues that gently warm the heart — had gradually elevated this meekness to sanctity. Nature had made her a lamb; religion had made her an angel.”

Hugo’s story is filled with the richest characters, with a profound understanding of their struggles, their places in life, the poverty — whether moral, spiritual, or material — that makes living difficult but which, inversely, allows the gift of charity and mercy to flourish when the miserable encounter that rare breed of persons known as radiant stars in the eyes of heaven: saints.

Pope Benedict XVI once commented, with extraordinary insight, that it is the art and the saints of Christianity that give the greatest testimony to the veracity of the faith. It is appropriate that Les Misérables came out on Christmas Day, for — giving honor to the Pope’s wisdom — the film is a work of sacred art that conveys the truth of faith through the example of its saints.