Dear Evan Hansen came onto the movie scene with a great pedigree. It won a crazy amount of Tony Awards for its Broadway run. The star of the play, Ben Platt, is also starring in the movie. Steven Chbosky, who’s a great director of teen dramas, is at the helm, along with a host of great Academy Award nominated actors. You know what else had a similar pedigree to Dear Evan Hansen? Cats. Now Dear Evan Hansen isn’t Cats bad, but it drifts in and out of Jellicle territory. Know how I know? At the end of the movie, one person clapped, and the rest of the theater burst into laughter. Meow!
Evan Hansen (Platt) is an anxiety ridden senior in high school raised by single mom Heidi (Julianne Moore). Broken arm in hand, Evan writes letters to himself – an assignment from a therapist – to try to overcome his anxiety in time for his first day in school. Evan hopes either his family friend Jared (Nik Dodani) or his crush Zoe Murphy (Kaitlyn Dever) might sign his cast. Instead, Zoe’s “unstable” brother Colin (Colton Ryan) not only essentially threatens Evan to sign the cast, he steals Evan’s therapist note. Evan freaks out for a few days wondering what Colin will do with his note, but things turn way worse, when Evan is told by Colin’s parents Larry (Danny Pino) and Cynthia (Amy Adams) that Colin committed suicide, and believe that Evan’s note to himself was Colin’s suicide note.
I wish Dear Evan Hansen had been flipped around and seen from everyone else’s point of view. That story is much more interesting and rewarding because of the crazy qualified cast. That story is about how someone’s suicide affects everyone in the community, from family to schoolmates, etc. With basically one song apiece, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amy Adams, and Amandla Stenberg create compelling characters with different perspectives on Colin’s tragic decision. Any minute we spend away from Evan I found myself more interested in what was going on because the actors really try to make this movie as important as it can be.
But here’s the thing: I was listening to a movie podcast, where the writer/director of Runner, Runner, a crappy Justin Timberlake movie, said that because they changed the look of Timberlake’s character to fit the actor, the movie completely fell apart. That’s right, one bad decision cascaded across the whole movie. Dear Evan Hansen has the same problem: in this case, it’s the well intentioned but calamitous casting of 28 going on 35 Ben Platt to play Evan Hansen like his 23 year old self did on Broadway. That casting torpedoes the entire deck of cards the story is built upon. Evan makes the most evil, vile decisions scene after scene the minute he hears about Colin’s suicide, choosing the most self-indulgent odious actions for vapid reasons at best. Now, if say, the movie went the opposite way and cast way young (someone who barely looks 16), then its easier for the audience to blame youth and teenage naivete on the situation. But when a clearly almost 30 year old does these things? I had to look away in disgust multiple times. In addition, the movie wants to highlight Platt’s singing ability and recreate his stage magic, so that means we forego the more interesting story about parenting troubled children and instead focus on the anxiety riddled misanthrope Evan singing his heart’s desire without a care or thought for anyone else. The movie thinks you’ll be rooting for Evan by the end, but that one bad decision made me nearly fall asleep because I could not have cared less about that a**hole.
Dear Evan Hansen sucks. I’m sorry everyone. Instead of suffering through it’s bullsh*t, I recommend two superior young adult musicals to watch instead: In the Heights or Everyone’s Talking About Jamie. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake is also on the horizon. Or see Steven Chbosky’s better teen films Perks of Being a Wallflower or Wonder. Or Kaitlyn Dever’s better trauma ridden teen drama Short Term 12? Or Amandla Stenberg’s better coming of age story The Hate U Give? Or even Ben Platt’s better musical Pitch Perfect. Geez, how could so many entertaining people get this so, so wrong?