Review:
"Dear Evan Hansen"
Release Date: Sept. 24, 2021
Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 137 minutes Is it fair to completely dismiss Dear Evan Hansen because Ben Platt has aged out of the role that earned him a Tony Award? Of course not. But Platt’s presence as the depressed and anxious high school misfit is just one of the contributing factors that make Dear Evan Hansen an incongruous, cringe-inducing anti-musical that lacks any sense of self-awareness. While there’s no denying that the songs belted out by Platt et al. are done so with conviction and poignancy, the Stephen Chbosky-directed Dear Evan Hansen prides itself on being so grounded in its style and presentation that its mostly static musical sequences seem like an afterthought at best, superfluous at worst. Characters sit at tables and desks to reveal through song their innermost thoughts, share their secrets, and make their confessions. I’ve not seen the stage musical, so I don’t whether Chbosky has remained faithful to its style and choreography. If he does, what may have worked on stage does not work in this film. The potent lyrics are betrayed by the bland visuals (with the one notable exception, “Sincerely, Me,” a flight of fantasy that is fueled with by an energy and a creativity otherwise absent from Dear Evan Hansen.) In addition, this blunt-edged examination of disaffected youth—based a book by the film’s screenwriter Steven Levenson and featuring music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul—allows its opportunistic bundle of nerves to operate without any consequences. All relevant parties, from Platt to Chbosky to the musical’s creators, are happy to hide behind Evan’s mental health issues. Yes, Platt’s Evan Hansen may be a lonely soul starved of love and desperate for attention. But, when faced with telling a grieving family the truth or a lie that could and does have greater ramifications, Evan makes the wrong decision. And he keeps making the wrong decision until so much damage is done that he has no choice but to tell the truth. It starts with a letter Evan writes to himself as part of a therapy exercise. The letter is stolen from Evan by the troubled Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan). After Connor kills himself, his mother Cythnia (Amy Adams) and stepfather Larry (Danny Pino) find the letter. They assume that not only is this Connor’s suicide note but that Connor and Evan were friends. The hard thing to do in a situation such as this is to disappoint two people who want to learn more about the unstable and emotionally distance son they barely knew. The easy thing to do is to lie just to provide temporary comfort to the grief stricken. Evan takes the easy way out. And he reaps the benefit by being treated like a surrogate son by the Murphys and developing a close relationship with his longtime crush, Connor’s sister, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever). Dear Evan Hansen is meant to be uncomfortable through the employment of the white lie that triggers a series of events that ultimate hurt all those who buy into it. But from the start, it is hard to trust Evan’s motivates. His mother Heidi (Julianne Moore) is rarely home; his father is absent from his life. Evan wants to establish a meaningful connection with someone, anyone. And it quickly becomes clear that he is willing to build upon his lie—one that never seemed as if it was told with good intentions in the first place—in order take of the advantage of the Murphys’ kindness as well as to elicit the sympathy of the students (especially Amandla Sternberg’s social crusader Alana) who never even knew he existed before Connor’s death. This even extends to social media. Dear Evan Hansen does succeed in magnifying the pain and suffering felt by the Murphys, and that they immediately engender our compassion because we know it is only a matter of time that the fabricated positive image Evan paints of Connor will soon to be shattered. Adams bursts with false hope as a mother who frantically wants to believe the son she could never reach was not the person she sadly knew he to be. Always honest and sincere, Dever takes her confused sibling on the film’s most compelling emotional journey. Zoe is initially suspicious of what Evan tells the family. But Evan wears Zoe down with his glowing impressions of Connor, so much so that Zoe cannot help but come to see her brother in a different light. It is heartbreaking to watch Zoe fall for Evan’s lies. Evan certainly uses the Murphys’ eagerness to rewrite their family history to his own ends. A late reveal, unfortunately, feels as much as an excuse to justify Evan’s actions as it is to provide greater insight into his fragile state of mind. So what if Evan sees himself in Connor? Evan’s deceit and subsequent misdeeds immediately take on an disturbing quality that go beyond what director Stephen Chbosky and screenwriter Steven Levenson intended. They want us to feel Evan’s loneliness and his yearning for affection and acceptance. But Evan’s endeavors become so calculated that we can’t help but view him as a hustler, with the Murphys his easy marks. And Dear Evan Hansen always gives him the easy way out. Part of the problem lies with Ben Platt reprising his role as Evan. Platt is 27 years old but it appears as though he has been aged up in the film to look more like a parent than a student. Don’t rely on the Grease defense. That film musical winked at the casting of actors in their late 20s and early 30s. As he walks down the high school hallway with shoulders slumped, Platt carries himself as a middle-age Woody Allen among teenagers. His sad-sack demeanor robs Evan of whatever empathy he deserves. Would it have better had Dear Evan Hansen digitally de-aged Platt to present him? Probably. But even then, Platt remains too coy, too determined, too insufferable for us to believe his Evan is just an innocent and naïve victim of an out-of-control situation of his making. Robert Sims Aired: Sept. 23, 2021 Web sites: https://www.universalpictures.com/movies/dear-evan-hansen https://www.facebook.com/dearevanhansenmovie |
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