Dear Evan Hansen
Dear Evan Hansen
Starring Ben Platt, Kaitlyn Dever, Amy Adams, Julianne Moore
Directed by Steven Chbosky
Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) suffers from social anxiety, and his therapist recommends that he writes letters to himself everyday in order to boost his confidence. It doesn't particularly help, especially when it comes to talking to his crush, Zoe Murphy (Kaitlyn Dever), and when her brother Connor (Colton Ryan) finds Evan's self-written note to himself (after signing his cast) and finding that he mentioned Zoe, he angrily takes the note thinking it was designed to provoke him. Days later the principal calls Evan to the office to talk to Connor's parents, Cynthia (Amy Adams) and Larry (Danny Pino), who hand him the note thinking Connor wrote it to him, and informing Evan that Connor took his own life. Instead of coming clean and saying that the note was written by him, he leads them to believe that he and Connor were friends - something his parents thought Connor didn't have. To further expound on the lie, he has his friend Jared (Nik Dodani) forge e-mails supposedly between the two, and relishes in the attention he receives from Connor's family - especially Zoe.
When Student Body President Alana Beck (Amandla Stenberg) expresses desire to hold a memorial for Connor, she asks Evan to talk at the memorial and share his friendship with him, and Evan breaks out into an emotional song called "You Will Be Found" that talks about how Connor was there for him, and that no one is really alone. The speech goes viral, and Evan becomes one of the most popular people at school - and finds love in Zoe. All the while, he tries to maintain his lies as they keep compiling on top of each other, ultimately threatening to ruin the lives of those Evan claims are closest to him.
"Dear Evan Hansen" was a huge Broadway success back in 2015, winning several Tony Awards and becoming one of the most beloved modern musicals in recent memory, but obviously something got lost in the translation to the big screen. The whole movie felt like an exercise in emotional manipulation, wanting us to feel bad for a kid who seemingly didn't really even give a care about Connor's suicide and wanted to usurp himself into his family, and in essence taking over his life. He admired Connor's family because they were wealthy and together, something he felt he was missing with his own family, as his father left him at a young age and it's just him and his hard-working mother, who's hardly around because she's constantly working to make a better life for herself and Evan.
Even though Evan supposedly suffers from social anxiety, there's not a lot of moments where it actually comes into play. He has some nervous ticks that are more humorous and stereotypical than sincere, and manages to juggle a litany of lies rather expertly for someone who's supposed to be worried about social interactions. He could've been forgiven if he had stuttered when Connor's parents first talked to him, but any grace given to him evaporated when he knowingly made fake e-mails that showcased a fake friendship that gave real hope to Connor's parents that he actually had a friend - something he didn't have. It made his suicide all the more damaging in that he really killed himself because he was alone, and Evan monopolized on that tragedy in order to elevate his own success. He doesn't show much in the way of remorse or regret, and doesn't seem to care at all that Connor killed himself other than to tell made-up stories about their supposed friendship. Only near the end - when his lies begin catching up with him - does he begin to show remorse, but it feels like it's moreso because he's about to be exposed for the liar that he is rather than a sincere change of heart, and his lies end up hurting Connor's family even more in their darkest moment, compounding on their grief, and leaving Evan relatively unscathed in the process.
The movie is supposed to be a musical, but the songs are very few and far-between, and all center around the big lie that Evan concocts for himself. The biggest, rousing, moving song of the whole film was "You Will Be Found," which Evan sings at Connor's memorial, and I highly suggest you listen to the song on its own merit on YouTube and not from this movie. The song is based around Evan saying that Connor taught him that no one is alone, and again it's a lie because they were never friends, so in essence the song itself is forged from a lie, no matter how meaningful the theme of the song is - it's a lie. Connor was alone, he wasn't found, and no one was able to lift him up because he had no one around him to help him. The song itself is amazing, but the story around it dulls the impact to nothing more than saccharine self-service and emotional manipulation (and the song itself in the movie ends with a cringe-worthy montage of people who mosaic themselves into a giant picture of Connor who, again, had no one, despite the song's upbeat message).
Ben Platt has played Evan Hansen in the stage play since its inception, so it seemed to make sense on paper to cast him in the film as well, but again the translation from stage to screen is vastly different. Platt is almost thirty, and trying to play a teenager doesn't really work for him, but it's something that didn't bother me as much as others because I grew up with the original "Beverly Hills 90210" where the teenagers on the show were clearly actors in their thirties. Still, Platt plays Evan as a sociopath, a self-serving loser who creepily stalked Zoe and used his sideline admiration to sing a song to her seemingly from Connor, which only makes it more despicable and manipulative. Evan is a wholly unsympathetic character who has no redeeming qualities, and uses his mental illness as a crutch to explain his bad behaviors.
Kaitlyn Dever does an admirable job as Zoe, who's as duped as anyone else over Evan's lies, so much so she falls in love with him, and when that happened I was literally yelling at my screen "no! Don't do it!" Amy Adams plays Cynthia as a mother struggling with the suicide of her son while trying to understand his motives, and Evan does her no favors by giving her false hope that Connor actually had friends. Danny Pino plays the traditional stepfather role as he remains stoic through most of the story before finally breaking down, and Julianne Moore actually plays the most believable role as Evan's longsuffering mother, who only wants the best for her ungrateful son who would rather live as Connor's stand-in than her son. Not even Amandla Stenberg is left unscathed, as her character secretly struggles with her own insecurities and fears despite having a tough outer shell, but she too resorts to emotional manipulation to get what she wants. Ultimately, this is a film about self-seeking sociopaths who all dance on Connor's grave as he turns in it.
While trying to tell a story about how we're not really alone in the world, "Dear Evan Hansen" produces the opposite message - showing how people utilize the suicide of someone to make their own lives better, resulting in a wholly uncomfortable film to watch for all the wrong reasons.
The Score: D
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