A modern 'Les Misérables' captures the energy and tension of a Paris neighborhood on the brink

In director Ladj Ly’s incendiary debut, and Academy Award nominee in the International Film category, “Les Misérables,” you won’t find a 19th century student revolt or Jean Valjean trying to protect his adopted daughter. But Victor Hugo would have no trouble recognizing the tensions between police and the people living in his old neighborhood.

In this modern tale, a rural cop, Stéphane (Damien Bonnard), is a new transfer to a police station in the Paris suburb or Montfermeil. That’s the area where the Threnadiers’ had their inn in Hugo’s novel, and now there’s a school there that carries Hugo’s name. It’s a low-income area, dominated by a housing project called Los Bosquets, whose residents deal with crime, poverty and an uncaring police force — embodied by Stéphane’s new partners, Chris (Alexis Manenti) and Gwada (Djebril Zonga).

While making their rounds, the three cops try to make an arrest, but the incident turns violent in a hurry — and while the officers are trying to deal with the aftermath, they notice a drone with a camera flying above. Fearful that video of the incident will go viral, Chris and Gwada go on a rampage to track down the operator of that drone.

Ly was born in Mali and grew up in Los Bouquets, and like Jean Valjean spent some time in prison. (He served two years for being an accomplice in a kidnapping, according to the French paper Libération, which wrote about the case last month while debunking claims in right-wing papers that he was charged with attempted murder.) Ly brings a chilling authenticity to the scenes of civic unrest and police intimidation, with the fish-out-of-water Stéphane as the observer being shocked and then appalled by what he witnesses and is forced to take part in.

Los Bosquete is a powderkeg, as Ly depicts it in “Les Misérables,” and the cops are the gasoline — a situation familiar and all-too-real to people in Paris or any major American city. The question Ly asks provocatively, but leaves for us to consider, is what to do when a spark lands on it all.

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‘Les Misérables’

★★★1/2

Opened January 10 in select cities; opens Friday, January 17, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language throughout, some disturbing/violent content, and sexual references. Running time: 102 minutes; in French, with subtitles.