Dear Evan Hansen *** (2021, Ben Platt, Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Nik Dodani, Colton Ryan, Danny Pino, Julianne Moore, Amy Adams) – Classic Movie Review 12,371

Anyone for a filmed version of a jolly Broadway musical about mental illness, suicide, grief, guilt, and endless lying and denial?

Director Stephen Chbosky’s American coming-of-age musical film 2021 Dear Evan Hansen is based on the hit 2015 stage musical by Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Ben Platt stars as Evan Hansen, reprising his performance that he originated on stage six years earlier.

Evan Hansen is a morose and awkward US high schooler seeing a counsellor and taking pills for his mental difficulties, suffering with depression and social anxiety. He’s asked by his therapist to write a letter to himself, Dear Evan Hansen…, but an even more disturbed classmate grabs hold of it at the school printer, and makes off with it. Next thing, Hansen’s called in by the principal, and classmate’s parents tell him their son has committed suicide, and they have mistaken Hansen’s letter to himself for their son’s suicide note. They think the two boys were best buddies, and desperately want to befriend Hansen, who gets caught up in an endless series of elaborate lies, mainly just to please everybody and make nice, though partly because he is attracted to Connor’s younger sister Zoe Murphy (Kaitlyn Dever).

The film has its appeal but it beset with serious problems.

Evan Hansen (2021, Ben Platt).

The main problem here is that Ben Platt is now 27 and playing a 17-year-old high school student, and, though he can sing like a bird, the casting just doesn’t work on screen. He looks 27, especially in the many close-ups. And he lacks enough movie magnetism. Broadway star he may be, but he just doesn’t seem to have the stuff as a screen star here. And the film is really all about him. The solid, even rather special cast also includes Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Nik Dodani, Colton Ryan, Danny Pino, Julianne Moore, and Amy Adams – but their characters and their performances lack charisma, fascination and pizazz.

Another problem is that nine musical numbers are removed for the film, including “Anybody Have a Map”, “Disappear”, “To Break in a Glove”, and ‘Good for You’, so the film’s lack of faithfulness to its source material must be annoying to fans of the show. (Amandla Stenberg wrote a new none-too-great original track ‘The Anonymous Ones’, with Pasek and Paul, and that’s not much help) Oh, and the role of Jared Kalwani (Nik Dodani), Evan’s droll and sarcastic gay friend is reduced and the character of Alana Beck (Amandla Stenberg), Evan’s earnest but melodramatic classmate, is expanded, making things more heterosexual. It’s also a shame that material involving Evan seeing visions of Connor telling him to continue with the lies and keep his memory alive are also cut. Evan and the ghost of the dead Connor make good companions in their number together.

So they were going for mistaken ‘wider appeal’ probably. Nevertheless, the show is not reimagined enough, or successfully enough, for the screen. The flat direction lacks flair, style and interest. The film is as morose and awkward as its lead character.

But the heart of the story is still there, and it is as bold as it comes, and as fascinating, and its portrayal of mental illness is very interesting. But the film is a bit of a long slog at two and a quarter hours, and downer as it goes along and a total downer as it ends, just when you expect it’s all gonna work out okay. Well, at least the film isn’t sentimental, or phony, or fake. And sometimes. it’s quite entertaining, and even quite brave. It means real well, and that’s very good. There is a good film here somewhere, but this isn’t quite it.

Ben Platt’s father Marc Platt is a producer on the film.

It cost around $28 million and earned $19.1 million total.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,371

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