Dear Evan Hansen is the adaptation of the Tony award-winning Broadway musical. I’m sure the musical has no doubt struck a chord (no pun intended) with its target audience, but as a movie, it hits a false note (pun intended) in so many scenes.
It stars Ben Platt who reprised his role from the Broadway production as the titular character who suffers from severe anxiety and is given assignments by his therapist to write himself letters that will tell him what’s gonna be good about each day.
Evan spends his days in high school in a constant state of panic due to his anxiety which he believes renders him friendless. One day one of his letters accidentally finds its way into the hands of Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan) and Colton believes Evan has a crush on his younger sister and storms off.
A few days later, Evan encounters Connor’s parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) who tell him that Connor committed suicide and they believe the letter was written to Evan and they assume the two were best friends.
Evan is invited to Connor’s family for dinner and they want to know all about their friendship and so of course Evan has to invent so many lies and he does so in the form of musical numbers. It seems like a consistent structure in this film that when the characters can’t articulate certain plot points, they have to break out in song and the results come across as remarkably awkward.
The high school performs a memorial service for Connor and Evan speaks about his supposed friendship with Connor and his story is so inspiring that the kids now embrace Evan as one of their own.
The music for Dear Evan Hansen was written by the team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul who wrote the music for La La Land and The Greatest Showman. It’s too bad that in addition to being awkward, the musical numbers are also cloying and artificial within an inch of their lives. The actors do their best, but the premise undermines and devalues any chance of making them memorable.
After a while, the movie also gets tiresome from having crafted characters whose personalities seem so completely watered down that we don’t really have much of an investment as it progresses.
It’s also guilty of being shamelessly manipulative at every corner. Dear Evan Hansen is the sort of film that sets out to inspire and bring to light topics such as mental illness in teens, but the execution is such a spectacular train wreck that it makes overcoming your inner demons seem more like a job than a joy.
Grade: C-
(Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language and some suggestive references.)
