A "Miserable" Date

It was a date in 4 Acts.  Act I started out the evening right.  We went to a Saturday evening worship service at Crosspoint UMC at their South Hanover location.  It's in a strip mall and fronted by a coffee shop, Perking Point.  Nice place, nice people and good worship.  Off to the movies for Act II and then dinner for Act III.  The movie, Les Miserables is nearly 3 hours long and we went for dinner afterwards.  I can't remember the last time we had dinner at 10:30.  Probably not since we left Kansas City 16 years ago.  Looks like this part of the world is starting to grow up.  Dinner in a restaurant that didn't close the kitchen before 10 p.m.!  My daughter couldn't believe we were just getting to dinner that late.  I told her this is what life is like before children and when children are big enough to handle Mom and Dad going out for a good time.  Hey, we are still young enough-dinner at Luby's Cafeteria at 4:30 can wait!

Les Miserables is a must see.  For those of you who are hibernating in a cave for the winter, it is a filmatic opera, released Christmas Day.  Not a musical.  Huge difference.  A musical is action and dialogue interspersed by sudden bursts of song.  An opera is action and sung dialogue, with very little spoken word and  interspersed with arias.  Opera in film is quite different from operatic theatre.  For one, close-ups allow all to see the emotion in the singer, not just hear the emotion.  Another is the obvious difference in scenery, just as in any play or musical turned film.  This particular opera is not just a take your wife or girlfriend out kinda movie.  My husband liked it so much, he is reading the unabridged novel by Victor Hugo (he also wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

Les Miserables is an emotionally charged story.  The short version:  parole breaker Jean Valjean is running from the law, in the form of policeman Javert, while raising and protecting an orphaned girl.  The story begins at the end of Napoleon's reign in 1815.  The story ends following the June Rebellion of 1832.  The movie is well cast, with powerful performances from all.  There is very little happiness (get a clue from the title!).  I can only imagine how physically drained the actors must have been after a day of filming. 

The film has won 3 Golden Globes and is nominated for 9 BAFTA awards and 8 Academy Awards.  It's really good.  I will watch it again some time.  But not any time soon.  I need to recover.  I can't handle that much emotional intensity again so soon.

So, Act IV of date night?  A lady never tells.