Les Miserables/Don Downinthedumps/Tony Terriblysads

I went along to the cinema last night with the girlfriend to see the film version of the English adaptation of the French musical of the 19th Century novel by Victor Hugo.

From a screenwriting perspective it is a little difficult to know what to take from it. I have not seen the stage version nor read the novel. Presumably work had to be done to transfer it from the stage; the excellent William Nicholson (among others) wrote the screenplay and it suffers few obvious ill-effects in its pacing from the adaptation (some film versions of musicals have a glaring "intermission" point that brings the story to a juddering halt). But musicals are sort of a class apart, aren't they? Characters singing their every thought and feeling, often in rhyme. Subtle it ain't.

I did learn a few things though.

• A revolution based mainly on enthusiastic chair-stacking is probably not sustainable.
• The boulanger-lobby in 19th Century France was practically running the place if the authorities' attitude to bread-theft is anything to go by.
• The costume designer must have hated Amanda Seyfried. That's the only explanation for those bonnets.