Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway star in the movie version of the international blockbuster musical based on Victor Hugo’s story about Jean Valjean, a prisoner who steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children, is sent to prison for 19 years, and then, when he comes out, is relentlessly pursued by a policeman for a crime he did not commit.

Hugo explained the themes of the book in a preface:

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

The movie will be out at the end of the year.  Until then, you can watch the Les Miserables: The 25th Anniversary Concert or Les Miserables, the non-musical version of the story starring Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman.