Sometimes the transition from stage to screen can be a wee bit rough. That was certainly the case with the big-screen adaptation of Great White Way legends Cats (2019) and A Chorus Line (1985). Early film reviews for the multi-Tony-winning Dear Evan Hansen with its leap to the silver screen are calling the Ben Platt starring vehicle a complete and utter disaster.
Do not worry your heads “Fansens,” the affectionate term for those who cannot get enough of their Platt-centric, deeply emotional dramatic musical. The Movie Mensch disagrees.
The first smart thing producers did—besides deciding to keep the Tony, Grammy, and Emmy Award-winning Platt in the title role (even if some writers say he’s “too old” to still portray the high schooler)—is hire Perks of Being a Wallflower helmer Stephen Chbosky. He was an impeccable choice. Nobody could have brought the burgeoning teenage emotional bombs of his own book of the same title to the screen in 2012. Not that Dear Evan Hansen is littered with angst. For that matter, neither was Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s just that both pieces of art deal brilliantly with the emotional whirlwind that is being a teenager, especially when it comes to today’s social-media-driven world.
The cast, led by Platt, finds Amy Adams as wife Cynthia Murphy to Danny Pino’s husband Larry Morra, i.e., Connor’s grieving and desperate for answer parents. Julianne Moore is Evan’s single mother, Heidi Hansen, while Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart) is brilliant as Connor’s sister Zoe, while Amandla Stenberg of The Hate You Give tackles the complex character of Alana Beck, and Nik Dodani as one of Evan’s only friends. Colton Ryan is the troubled Connor, while Blindspotting star Daveed Diggs (also of Hamilton fame) is a mental hospital nurse while DeMarius Copes is Oliver.
The Broadway production’s writer, Steven Levensen, was also smartly tapped to reprise his role in penning the screenplay, as was the music and lyricists team of Beni Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land and The Greatest Showman).
On the soundtrack, Dear Evan Hansen proudly shows off its Grammy-winning musical menagerie, featuring its Grammy-winning songs, such as the seismic anthem You Will Be Found, Waving Through a Window, For Forever, and of course, Words Fail.
On paper, this thing looks like a no-brainer. Dear Evan Hansen should keep the stage phenomenon going exponentially as cinema reaches more folks than the New York City stage. So, what happens?
The story, as you may or may not have known by now chronicles what happens when Hansen does his therapist’s ordered “homework” and writes himself a letter about his hopes and accomplishments of the day. Until this point, Evan did not take this seriously. For some reason, one day at school he did, and Evan laid it all out there, complete with its titular Dear Evan Hansen to start it mirroring a million of other letters. The problem arises when Connor—who previously took it upon himself to be the sole signer of Evan’s cast for a broken arm—takes Evan’s letter at the library’s printer and it is on his person when he is found dead from suicide.
Cynthia and Larry are desperate for answers, even as they get swept away in grief and well-wishes by family and their community. When Evan Hansen’s name appears on what appears to be his suicide note, Evan rolls with the flow and makes up answers. It’s immeasurably aiding the family, even Connor’s sister, Dever’s Zoe. So, one can see why Hansen went with it. But everyone in that theater knows that this isn’t going to end well… or is it in maybe a manner one did not expect?
A few things… Platt played the character on Broadway at 16 and is not too old to tackle a high schooler at twenty-seven. After all, I mean come on, Hollywood history is filled with downright adults inhabiting teens for years. How old was Gabrielle Carteris (Andrea Zuckerman on 90210) when it first appeared? Twenty-nine!
Second, much is being made of the fact that the heartbreaking nature that permeates every ounce of the stage musical is actually missing in Chbosky’s film. That’s nonsense. As Hansen gets sucked up into Connor’s family and their grief with hints of happiness thanks to his made-up stories about, he and their late son’s friendship, this friendless/lonely soul whose mother (Moore) routinely works doubles and triples as a nurse suddenly has his own community. Even though it’s built with a paper pyramid of falsehoods, it is doing some good. Connor’s family is emerging from their grief, and he discovers something he never had previously—camaraderie.
Dear Evan Hansen is a moving movie experience. Sure, it doesn’t pack a wallop like a Chicago or West Side Story, but Evan is a moving lesson on the importance of family—no matter what form that takes. It also, without preaching, swirls in a vortex of lies and thus, is a piercingly lesson and a truth bomb about being aware of the psychological temperature of our fellow human.
Grade: B