WARNING: This review of Dear Evan Hansen contains a discussion of suicide.
For more information on the warning signs and prevention of suicide, click here. If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside the U.S., click here for a list of international hotlines.
A universally beloved adaptation of the Tony-winning stage musical Dear Evan Hansen was never going to happen, given the divisive nature of the source material. The story of a socially anxious high schooler who lies about being friends with a suicide victim is inherently provocative, with some finding Evan a fascinatingly messed-up protagonist while others feel the show lets him off too easy for his manipulations. Whether you love or hate the story, however, such provocation should at least be interesting. Despite some good performances and great songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the movie adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen is frustratingly boring.
Dear Evan Hansen was one of the first major films to shoot during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than any other Hollywood movie this year, the limitations show. Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) has always been a very performance-driven director rather than a visually-driven one, but the sheer visual monotony of Dear Evan Hansen feels bourne out of an inability to shoot a full movie. Musical numbers repeat the same choreography when they bother to even include any choreography at all. Many of the more moderately exciting shots from the trailers are just split-second inserts in the movie as if they could only film enough decent-looking footage to put in the trailer.
To get the elephant in the room out of the way: yes, Ben Platt looks too old to convincingly play a high schooler onscreen. Maybe he pulled it off on stage, but the biggest flaw in Platt's movie acting is that there's just too big a disjoint between his singing and speaking performances. Platt's singing voice is beautiful and powerful. In the songs, it's believable how he could convince the world of his lies. When he's not singing, however, his Evan is so overwhelmingly meek and uncertain that it's a wonder how he could convince anyone of anything.
Part of the point, perhaps, is that most people don't need that much convincing when they already want to believe something. Cynthia Murphy (Amy Adams), the mother of Evan's dead classmate Connor (Colton Ryan), is pretty much responsible for Evan's lies in the first place -- her misunderstanding that Evan's letter to himself was actually Connor's suicide note has her refusing to accept the reality that Evan and Connor were never friends. It seems less believable that Evan could convince Connor's sister Zoe (Kaitlin Dever), whose negative relationship with her brother makes for the show's most emotionally powerful song, "Requiem". Maybe it would be more believable if she knew Evan was making things up but went along with it to keep her parents happy?
The two new songs are, as new songs added to the movies of pre-existing musicals tend to be, nothing to write home about. The first, "The Anonymous Ones," is the better of the two -- a showcase for Amandla Stenberg as Alana and an earnest attempt at a mental health anthem without the lies and ironies of "You Will Be Found." The second, "A Little Closer," is narratively sound as part of the movie's new ending, but is musically a bore. Speaking of the new ending, while it's clearly screenwriter Steven Levenson's attempt to address criticisms of Evan getting off too easy in the original play, cutting out the song "Good For You," the number expressing Evan's guilt, ends up being counterproductive to those ends.
Dear Evan Hansen is earnest to a fault. Given the darkness of the story, it could definitely have used some more dark comedy. Nik Dodani offers some levity as Evan's family friend Jared, and his "Sincerely, Me" song briefly enlivens the proceedings. One positive change from the stage show is making Jared gay, as it shifts some of the jokes in that song away from gay panic and into more good-natured teasing. In general, it feels like there's deep unmined potential for a deeply ironic satire that never gets the chance to take off. Any energy the film might have in its first act is completely sapped out by the end. Not even Julianne Moore's best efforts as Evan's mom Heidi can make the final act interesting.
Dear Evan Hansen opens in theaters on Sept. 24.