Dear Evan Hansen - An Argument for the Film’s Virtues (Film Review)
Leaving the cinema after watching the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen, a very opinionated young man in front of me (approximately 14-years-old) exclaimed “I was with it until Evan sang at Connor’s memorial, then I was like “Wrap it up.” I couldn’t help but sympathize. He was right. Generally, the plot sustains its thrust until this point, then it begins to meander, then blows apart. But this was always a problem for this earnest musical that tries hard to encapsulate the experiences of those who deal with depression and anxiety: a bonkers crazy plot that taxes our willing suspension of disbelief at every turn. However, as I left the movie theatre with that young man’s words replaying in my ears, I also couldn’t help but think, “That was nowhere near as bad as what the critics have been saying.”
That’s not to say it is a game-changing film or anything near perfection…
For those who are not familiar with the stage version of Dear Evan Hansen, the musical arrived on Broadway under the director of Michael Grief on December 4, 2016. With a score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, a book by Steven Levenson, and Ben Platt playing the title character, Dear Evan Hansen won six Tony Awards. For its film incarnation, Pasek, Paul and Levenson have returned to do some retooling of this story about a teenager with anxiety and depression who is asked by his therapist to write letters of encouragement to himself. When one of these letters ends up in the hands of Connor Murphy, Evan’s classmate who commits suicide, Connor’s parents think their son had a friend in Evan and want to meet him. Evan, unable to disappoint them with the fact that Connor was a loner, creates an elaborate backstory of a friendship that never existed. The Murphy’s take Evan under their wing,. Of course, the truth finally comes out and Evan’s world implodes.
As someone who has been challenged with depression and anxiety myself (hearkening back to about the sixth grade), I spent much of this film’s duration ticking off the boxes of recognition. From the title character’s crippling panic of being in crowd situations and his fears of feeling “on the outside always looking in,” to the list of familiar medications traded like people sharing their astrological signs at a singles bar, it all became very personal and emotionally palpable. What the film does well is that it captures that daunting purgatory of mental illness, and, whether or not you agree with the trajectory of Evan’s downward spiraling journey, you empathize with (or viscerally feel) the paralysis that launches him into the ludicrous chain of events. Much of this is achieved on the shoulders of Ben Platt who deserves accolades and not constant maligning for his work in this film. Setting aside his alleged geriatric drawbacks (this didn’t bother me) and his more distracting Ronald McDonald-esque, Ogilvie Home Perm hairstyle (this did bother me), Platt embodies the character and gives true testament to those of us who indeed are plagued with the demons of anxiety and depression. Every millisecond of his performance is a nuanced study into what it means to navigate this tempestuous sea of stasis in a world of despair. Platt pours his heart, soul, and very existence into playing Evan Hansen, and through his efforts, pays tribute to all of us riding the Lexapro train.
Sadly, Director Stephen Chbosky has found no exciting or interesting way to open up the film and it only sparks in fits and starts. A few musical sequences soar in that larger-than-life way we’ve come to expect from a screen musical. The show’s cleverest song “Sincerely Me,” a trio where Evan creates a backlog of letters between himself and Connor Murphy, a classmate who has commit suicide (played by an underused but absolutely heartbreaking Colton Ryan) with the help of Hansen’s snarky acquaintance Jared (Nik Dodani, who should have been perfect in this role and yet somehow was directed as a one-note caricature). The joyous number is at complete odds with the two depressed teens who are imagining happy days in a perfect (made-up) friendship. It’s a delight. The film’s opening number “Waving Through the Window” is deftly directed as the camera focuses on Evan as he slowly becomes enveloped by the crowd that he doesn’t feel a part of. Egregiously, the film drops some of the stage show’s better numbers including the achingly poignant “Disappear,” Connor’s raison d’être, and the savage cry of pain “Good For You” sung by Evan’s mom Heidi. What is left after these are gone are a handful of Pasek and Paul songs that melodically sound like the same tune repeated over and over again, but with different lyrics. The new song for the film “The Anonymous Ones” is lyrically insightful, poetic even, but it is melodically all a part of the same bland “ho-hum, who cares?” tediousness.
Sometimes a musical written for the stage is so tethered to that medium that it doesn’t make the transition to film easily. Unlike In the Heights, which opened up gloriously on the big screen earlier this year, Dear Evan Hansen feels smaller for its journey to the cineplex. One can’t help thinking that the stage show benefits from the distance and perspective a proscenium arch and the twenty or thirty-feet between audience and performer a theatre venue can provide. On film, with the intimacy of the camera up close and personal with the musical’s imperfections (such as the sameness of most of the score, the questionable twists and turns of the story, the marginal character development), we see the cracks. In fact, throughout most of the film’s interminably long 137 minutes, we cannot escape the feeling that this was intended to be a Lifetime movie of the week and not a piece of art vying for Oscar consideration.
Able support is given by such talented performers as Amy Adams (as Connor’s grieving momma), Julianne Moore (as Evan’s loving but frustrated momma), Danny Pino (as Connor’s emotionally repressed stepdad), Kaitlyn Dever (as Zoe, Connor’s sister and Evan’s love interest) and Amandla Stenberg (as Evan’s classmate who strives to preserve Connor’s memory). Every one is terrific, but there is so little of consequence for these people to do other than cry and speak in hushed tones, that their talents feel wasted.
Dear Evan Hansen on screen is worth watching … once. It was never going to make the ideal film musical, but it has moments that are worth the price of the ticket and popcorn. More importantly, it is a story that explores mental illness: depression, anxiety, and the white lies those of us who suffer from it tell to keep people happy, to keep them from worrying about us, and to insulate ourselves from the experiences of day to day life that we do not have the tools to handle. For this alone, Dear Evan Hansen onscreen dilutes the feeling of being isolated and reminds us that we are not suffering by ourselves, but in a crowd of people who just happen to be so caught up in their own crap that they don’t realize we are drowning in ours.
