Something has been lost in translation from stage to screen because what's there now does not seem strong enough to have won best musical and best score on Broadway. And at 137 minutes, it does go on.

It's the cinema equivalent of rubbing cut onions in the eyes of the audience: film-making that is cynically and artificially engineered to make the audience weep.

The endless emotional frankness of the lyrics - those who seek the ironic distance of Sondheim need look elsewhere - becomes exhausting all too quickly.

Delving into the issue of young people's mental health is courageous - but this mawkish adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical simply doesn't work.