"Les Mis" Movie - Where is Eponine (Samantha Barks)?- Page 2

[DivaBrigader]

Posted: 12/10/12 at 9:28am

michellek - there is no harmony with Fantine and Eponine because Eponine isn't in that scene. Hathaway does that scene solo. There is only a glimpse of Eponine at the very end with the ghosts of the revolutionary dead behind the barricade during the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" reprise.

[michellek45]

Posted: 12/10/12 at 4:18pm

DivaBrigadier- It makes more sense to have Fantine do it solo, but those harmonies are one of my favorite parts in the whole show.

[ChanceEncounter]

Posted: 12/10/12 at 4:52pm

Eponine never crosses paths with Valjean so her appearing to him on his deathbed makes no sense.

In the stage show it can be forgiven if you look at the appearances at the end differently. Fantine and Eponine are responsible for creating to two central emotional relationships in the show. Fantine gives Cosette to Valjean, and Eponine helps Marius meet and communicate with Cosette. So, when the everything is ending and JVJ is dying with Cosette and Marius at his side, Fantine and Eponine helped bring them together. I also never strictly saw their appearances in the stage show as being deathbed visions of Valjean. However, it sounds like in the film it's pretty explicit that Fantine and the Bishop appear to Valjean as he dies, so Eponine has no place.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 12/11/12 at 12:51pm

I agree it works well enough on stage for the reasons you described Chance. In the movie it would be a disaster.

[kec]

Posted: 12/11/12 at 3:15pm

"Eponine never crosses paths with Valjean so her appearing to him on his deathbed makes no sense. "

Actually she does; when she returns to the house to deliver a letter from Marius to Cossette, Valjean sees her first; he doesn't recognize her as a girl though. He takes the letter, promises it will be passed to Cossette and gives her some money and warns "him" to be careful. He was kind to her, which may explain why she appears in the musicl's finale on stage. But having the Bishop there makes a lot of sense.

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 12/11/12 at 3:49pm

From what I understand she doesn't deliver the letter to Valjean anymore, Gavroche does. In the film Cossette gives Eponine a different letter after Heart Full of Love that she withholds from him until her death scene.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 12/11/12 at 5:39pm

That's right. The movie went back to the original source, giving Gavroche back the task of delivering Marius' letter to Cosette, and Eponine withholding Cosette's letter to Marius until she dies. Eponine and Valjean never cross paths.

[ken8631]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 2:21pm

She looks and sounds pretty good!

[kec]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 3:51pm

"That's right. The movie went back to the original source, giving Gavroche back the task of delivering Marius' letter to Cosette, and Eponine withholding Cosette's letter to Marius until she dies. Eponine and Valjean never cross paths."

Ah, I haven't read the book yet, so I wasn't aware of this. Thanks.

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 11:52pm

Actually, none of the female characters really spend that much time on stage in Les Mis. Fantine dies well before the intermission, Cosette has only a few major scenes as an adult, and Eponine's role, as others have pointed out, is primarily to sing "On my Own," and to die in the rain on the barricade.