The History Boys

"How do you define history, Mr. Rudge?" "It's just one fucking thing after another." In the film version of Alan Bennett's very popular play, The History Boys, eight young men of York try for highly coveted spots at Cambridge and Oxford.
Something that I actually found interesting about the trailer was that it presented the film as a hilarious, British romp about young students trying to get into college who are incredibly inspired by their (seemingly) history and literature professor. There is no mention of homosexuality, no mention of inappropriate relations between teachers and students, nor of the students' actual young, serious history professor. These are important (damn near the main) elements of the plot.
While I enjoyed this story to some extent, specifically the abundance of extremely British humour (heh heh-notice the appropriate spelling), I think that the people who made the play into a film had no business doing so. There was not enough of a difference, not enough of a translation to the format of a movie. I felt like I was watching a play that someone had done a good job of video-taping. I question whether any part of the actual script was changed in any way from the play. It is hard to articulate this criticism, but it literally did not feel like enough of a film; there were certain things that, had they appeared in a play would have been acceptable, but appearing in a film, were just not believable and did not fit. One such aspect was the random singing that occurred. I also think that there was not enough of an introduction to the main characters (those boys of history)--something one can get away with more in a play, yet in a film audiences need a bit more background to understand fully what the situation is. I did, however, greatly enjoy the soundtrack-who doesn't love 1980s good rock?! Certainly worth seeing, but rather on a stage than on the big screen.