“Dear Evan Hansen” didn’t mean to be bad. In fact, you can feel how hard the actors are trying to communicate the emotion on-screen, specifically in their sometimes, ok maybe all the time, forced close-up soliloquies. “Dear Evan Hansen” is the perfect example of a musical that didn’t need to transition to the big screen. In fact, the message suffered for it.
Adapted by Stephen Chbosky (“Perks of Being a Wallflower"), the film tries so very hard to present the same message that won over audiences on the stage a few years back. Instilling the message that you are not alone and “you will be found” seems like an easy translation to screen. However, the crossover doesn’t resonate. There is a beginning, that awkwardly tries to find its footing, a middle, the only part of the movie that I didn’t find as much problem with, and the end, which presents a pretty unfulfilling resolution.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the 2016 Broadway hit “Dear Evan Hansen” here is a quick summary. Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) is an introverted high-school senior with anxiety and depression who has never related to his peers or his classmates. As part of an exercise given to him by his therapist, he is supposed to write letters addressed to himself to inspire confidence in his character. On the first day of school, the letter that he writes and addresses to himself is stolen by another classmate. Unbeknownst to Evan, the classmate, Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), who steals his letter from the library commits suicide the next day.
Searching for answers, the parents of Connor discover the letter in his possession and believe that Connor wrote it for Evan, his only friend. Desperate to understand their son’s motives and last moments, they take Evan under their wing, searching for answers into their son’s life. Evan, unable to tell Connor’s parents what really happened, ends up playing along. Caught up in a web of lies, Evan finds friends and family for the first time in his life, until his secrets come pouring out.
The 2015 Musical was a breakout success, earning multiple Tony Awards including celebration of Ben Platt in the lead role of Evan Hansen. The problem with the film adaptation is that it feels…unnecessary. Borderline cringey in the early moments of the film that include Platt (28), playing a 17-year-old high school student wandering throughout the hallways proclaiming how he wishes he wouldn’t be alone; the angles and shots didn’t transfer over to a film adaptation very well.
While it makes sense why Platt wanted to reprise his break-out role, he looks…old to put it very plainly. Maybe it would have been different if they choose to cast other high school students that are in their late twenties alongside Platt to cover up the age difference, but there are many cases where Platt quite frankly looks like a 30-year-old with a five o’clock shadow wandering the high school hallways. Cast in the role of his friend, and eventually girlfriend, is Katilyn Dever, 24-year-old, and the high school valedictorian is Amandla Stenberg, 22-years old. While they can pass for the high school seniors, Platt ages out. It doesn’t help that he runs and walks like he is a 5-year old….
Julianne Moore and Amy Adams play parents of the high school students and each receive a under-whelming and a bit awkward musical solo that simply wasn’t needed and didn’t show off any musical talent or skill. Please, future musicals take note, we don’t need the translation to the big screen.
OBVIOUSLY, not talking to you, “Wicked.”
Speaking as a completely objective, third-party outsider, “Dear Evan Hansen” is the perfect example as to why, musicals should sometimes stay in their own lane. It’s ok to just be good at one thing.
And that’s the sitch.
4.5/10
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