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Out of tune: why are audiences staying away from the movie musical?

West Side Story, Dear Evan Hansen and In the Heights have all been box office flops this year, which has led to a questioning of the genre’s place in Hollywood

I n a very strange year for movies, the failure of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is perhaps the most head-scratching development of all. The remake of the beloved 1961 musical grossed just $10m on its opening weekend, and while the film could certainly improve upon its lackluster debut over the holidays, it caps a year of disappointments for fans of the movie musical. In the Heights kicked off the summer with poor ticket sales and accusations of colorism for failing to have enough Afro-Latino actors in its cast. Dear Evan Hansen created the rare consensus of the year, hated by critics and audiences alike, and endured prolonged mockery on social media for its casting of the crow’s-footed Ben Platt as its teenaged protagonist. The less said about Diana: The Musical, a filmed version of the Broadway bomb that made its way to Netflix, the better.

At least people seemed to like Tick, Tick… Boom!, the Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed adaptation of a work by the late Jonathan Larson, although we don’t really know how many – Netflix continues to be cagey about viewing numbers, and the film had only a nominal release in theaters. All in all, it was a catastrophic year for a genre that has been a mainstay of cinema since the advent of talkies. Historically, movie musicals have been an opportunity to highlight the best of the theatrical experience: these are films with big budgets, melodramatic plots that play well on the big screen, and expansive dance numbers, and they just don’t play as well at home, no matter how big your flatscreen or how expensive your sound system.

Studio executives and box-office pundits expected audiences to show up for In the Heights, Dear Evan Hansen and West Side Story, and not just fans of the movie musical but general audiences, as well. After a year without movies, audiences would crave the spectacle. It didn’t happen. Viewers showed up for other movies. They showed up for superhero movies such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. They showed up for horror movies like A Quiet Place Part II. And they showed up for corporate bland-fests Free Guy and Jungle Cruise, which are already on their way to being money-making franchises for Disney. The pattern is damningly clear: each of the year’s 10 highest-grossing movies is either part of a long-running franchise or the beginning of one.

It’s too early to say if the movie musical needs a doctor or a coroner, but what is clear is that studio executives wildly overestimate how popular this genre is. People who love musicals really, really love musicals, and every time one of them hits at the box-office, a series of enthusiastic imitators tends to follow. When Chicago won best picture at the 2001 Oscars, it opened the floodgates for the genre’s revival (after basically being absent from theaters for two decades). The results have been spotty at best. For every The Greatest Showman or Les Misérables, both of which were huge hits, there were several like Nine, Rock of Ages, The Prom, or, worst-case scenario, Cats. The success rate for the movie musical is simply not very good, and given that they typically require large budgets to support the spectacle, it’s a risky proposition.

The disappointing returns from this year’s crop of movie musicals may also indicate a Covid-led acceleration of a long-simmering dynamic. For a great many moviegoers, there are now two kinds of movies: those you go to the theater for and those you are happy to watch at home a few weeks later. It seems that that theater is the place for big-budget serialized storytelling with major movie stars. Superhero movies, yes, but also the Fast and Furious franchise and James Bond. Vin Diesel, The Rock and Daniel Craig still have faces that mean more to us up on the big screen. For all they had to offer, neither In the Heights nor Dear Evan Hansen and West Side Story featured a major movie star, and there’s some hubris in the assumption that audiences would turn out for these casts filled with actors they had never heard of before. West Side Story did have Ansel Elgort onboard as Tony, but after he was accused of sexual assault, the distributors were forced to downplay his presence in the film’s marketing (Elgort has maintained that it was consensual).

There is still time, however, for the genre to make a comeback. Tick, Tick… Boom! may be nominated for a few Oscars, which would raise its profile significantly, while West Side Story is still considered the frontrunner for best picture. It will probably stay in theaters at least until the Academy Awards happen in March, which will give it plenty of time to increase its box-office haul. Still to be released this year is Cyrano, starring Peter Dinklage as the lovelorn poet, and featuring songs by the National. It’s unlikely to be a hit, but like the others mentioned, it could make an impression on awards voters.

Perhaps that’s where the musical has landed: as Oscar bait. With the hegemony of franchise film-making, any genre of film that deals with serious subject matter or is designed with adults in mind has already been relegated to the last few months of the year. King Richard, Being the Ricardos and Belfast were all made with Oscars in mind, and if they miss out on nominations, they will probably be considered failures. Movie musicals were once apart from that. They won Oscars, but they were also beloved by the general moviegoing public. Unless something changes dramatically in the next two months, those days may be over, and 2021 may be remembered as the year the movie musical took its last bow.

• West Side Story (2021)
• Steven Spielberg
• Lin-Manuel Miranda

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In 2021, movie musicals are again the rage. “In the Heights” and “ Annette ” have already been released. “tick, tick … BOOM” and Steven Spielberg ’s remake of “ West Side Story ” are soon to follow. Back in 2015, a coming-of-age musical entitled “Dear Evan Hansen,” premiered on Broadway, and took the world by storm by winning six Tony Awards. Based on a book penned by Steven Levenson , it follows the eponymous character, a teen suffering from social anxiety, as he navigates a local tragedy for his own gain. 

Evan ( Ben Platt ) wears a cast to protect the left arm he broke due to falling from a tree. He wants to talk to his crush, a guitar-playing Zoe Murphy ( Kaitlyn Dever ). But his anxiety gets in the way. To diffuse his uneasiness, his therapist suggests he write peppy letters to himself addressed as “Dear Evan Hansen.” When Zoe’s troubled brother Connor ( Colton Ryan ), however, takes one of Evan’s letters, only to die by suicide, Evan is tossed in the tumult of a fractured, grieving family. Connor’s parents believe Evan was his best friend. But the reality is far different. Evan plays along with the charade, gaining the fame, adulation, and love he’s always dreamed of. All at the expense of Connor’s memory.  

Stephen Chbosky ’s cinematic adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen,” whereby a 27-year-old Ben Platt reprises his role as the teenage titular character is a total misfire. It’s an emotionally manipulative, overlong dirge composed of cloying songs, lackluster vocal performances, and even worse writing.  

The problem with “Dear Evan Hansen” is systemic, and the film operates on faulty ground. Connor’s grieving parents—Cynthia ( Amy Adams ) and Larry ( Danny Pino )—meet with Evan under the belief he was Connor’s one close friend. Evan doesn’t put up much of a fight, which is blamed on his anxiety. But he deepens the subterfuge by enlisting his friend Jared ( Nik Dodani ) to create fake email exchanges supposedly written by Evan and Connor. The correspondence paints a picture of the pair visiting Connor’s favorite orchard, Evan falling from a tree, and Connor nursing him back to health. Cynthia and Larry completely buy the distasteful con. In his duping, Evan is revealed as a devious protagonist, and the film follows suit. 

The Benj Pasek and Justin Paul penned songs, such as "Only Us," "Requiem," "Sincerely, Me" etc. are a ramshackled assemblage of garish arrangements and even worse lyrics that ring with the artificial tinge of a plastic lollipop. Likewise, there’s no amount of suspension that’ll lift anyone to the disbelief of Platt being a teenager. His very build and frame, especially his jutted winged shoulders, is that of a grown man. The one added benefit he brings is his malleable voice, a vehicle with the ability to discover pockets of hard-fought warmth where only cold suspicion exists. 

Platt’s vocal performance might soar, but his choices are not merely overwrought; there are an assemblage of tics and jitters that’s often played for laughs rather than real pathos. Platt reprising his role, on the other hand, is the least of the film's problems: his character is threadbare, and there’s no amount of experience that can add depth to Evan. His task is made all the more challenging because Evan isn’t a likable character. His unsympathetic rendering doesn’t solely stem from the fact that he lied about being friends with Connor. His rot takes root in apathy, as he exhibits almost no regard for the feelings of Zoe, her parents or even Connor.   

Almost no one in this movie feels like an actual person. The exception is Evan’s mother Heidi, played by Julianne Moore . Heidi is a single mom, working late-night nursing shifts to afford college for Evan. She desperately wants the best for him, even when he doesn’t notice her efforts. The musical’s best scenes revolve around her, the first occuring when Cynthia and Larry offer to cover Evan’s tuition. She’s proud. And you can see the gears shifting inside of Moore’s head before she declines. The second is the film’s most tender vocal, Moore’s Judy Collins inspired performance of "So Big / So Small." Apart from Cynthia, everyone else in this musical isn’t just inconsistent, they’re poorly drawn. 

The film’s big reveal hinges on the total betrayal of a character, Alanna. Played with a modicum of sincerity by Amandla Stenberg , Alanna is the Student Body President who wants to prove that she’s worth something. In a film composed of self-interested characters, she’s the most selfless. But the writing in “Dear Evan Hansen” is so wretched, so manipulative, it needs to undermine her by dragging her down with the film’s other feckless drecks. She ultimately takes an action that sabotages Evan.   

Compounding the frustration elicited by “Dear Evan Hansen” is how often the costuming, the set design, and other small details like props reveal the film’s seams. T-shirts and sweaters are hewn closer to Platt’s body to make him look younger, but they do the opposite. The bland homes of both Evan and Zoe aren’t at all lived-in, displaying very little character beyond a department store commercial. When Evan looks at his yearbook to see Connor’s favorite books, heady titles like Kurt Vonnegut ’s Cat’s Cradle appear. But Connor looks no more than 10 years old in the picture. Rather the reading list is composed of the stereotypical titles associated with suicidal teens. At every turn, “Dear Evan Hansen” takes the lower, easier route. Each time it does a disservice to the misunderstood group with which it falsely claims empathy. 

With “Dear Evan Hansen,” Chbosky aims to identify with those struggling with mental health challenges, but he and the source material only possess a superficial understanding of such travails. The worst scene (among many bad ones) is when Evan gets the recording of Connor singing during a group therapy session, sending it to everyone he knows. Who videotapes a group therapy session? Who then sends that footage? It’s blatant emotional manipulation on the part of the film. Chbosky's film concerns itself solely with pulling at heartstrings, and then stamping them into the saccharine ground. “Dear Evan Hansen” is a terrible, misbegotten musical with too little self-awareness to care how out of tune it sounds.

This review was originally filed from the world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10th. The film opens on September 24th, only in theaters.

Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is an Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com. Based in Chicago, he is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) and Critics Choice Association (CCA) and regularly contributes to the  New York Times ,  IndieWire , and  Screen Daily . He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto. He has also written for the Criterion Collection, the  Los Angeles Times , and  Rolling Stone  about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

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Film Credits

Dear Evan Hansen (2021)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language and some suggestive reference.

131 minutes

Ben Platt as Evan Hansen

Amy Adams as Cynthia Murphy

Kaitlyn Dever as Zoe Murphy

Julianne Moore as Heidi Hansen

Amandla Stenberg as Alana Beck

Nik Dodani as Jared Kleinman

Colton Ryan as Connor Murphy

• Stephen Chbosky

Writer (based on the musical stage play with book by)

• Steven Levenson

Cinematographer

• Brandon Trost
• Anne McCabe
• Justin Paul

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Savvy young-adult auteur Steven Chbosky proves a smart choice to adapt the problematic stage musical, in which a lonely teen takes advantage of a school tragedy.

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With “ Dear Evan Hansen ,” a divisive Broadway musical sticks its neck out in movie form, trusting a shelf full of Tonys to sweep it from improbable stage success to mainstream glory — except when does that work? In a year with a well-above-average number of musicals popping up on the big screen (“In the Heights,” “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie,” “West Side Story,” “Cyrano,” “Tick, Tick … Boom!”), “Dear Evan Hansen” is the farthest below average in terms of actual merit: a curve-crashing after-school special, dressed up with so-so songs (not so much show tunes as lightweight pop-music imitations), about how people process tragedy in the age of oversharing.

That said, your mileage may vary. The movie pushes all sorts of buttons — or “triggers,” as the kids are calling them these days. Where some audiences feel seen, others are bound to take offense, and that split is what makes the Steven Levenson-written show (with music and lyrics by “La La Land” duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) such a fascinating phenomenon. In theory, who better to direct the film version than “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” director Steven Chbosky, a YA novelist with a proven track record for capturing the teenage outsider experience (though Logan Lerman always struck me as a little too with-it to be a wallflower)?

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“Dear Evan Hansen” rubbed me wrong onstage, and it doesn’t sit well with me now, despite a few smart improvements to the material. Baked into its DNA are three of the sins I find most irksome about young-adult entertainment. For starters, it uses suicide as a device. Self-harm is too serious a subject to be treated insincerely, whereas Levenson invents a character, Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), has him take his life offstage, and then uses that tragedy to ignite the plot. Second, pretty much everything that follows hinges on one of those elaborate misunderstandings that could be instantly clarified by a moment’s honesty. Here, awkward, attention-starved Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) allows the boy’s grieving family to believe that he and Connor were best friends, cozying up to the dead kid’s parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) and getting intimate with his sister, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever).

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Last but not least, the film casts actors born in the previous century as high school students. As in “Prom,” where the characters all looked old enough to have mortgages and children of their own, Platt, Dever et al., don’t convincingly pass as teens — and I say this as someone who adored Dever in “Booksmart” (in which she played a graduating senior). Actually, Dever is the best thing about this adaptation, which feels slightly less creepy in the lied-about-knowing-your-brother-to-worm-my-way-into-your-heart department, if only because Dever’s so good at balancing Zoe’s strength and vulnerability that the situation doesn’t read as a nearly 30-year-old creep manipulating a minor.

Just how old is Evan Hansen supposed to be anyway? There’s talk of essay contests and scholarships to pay for college, but Platt’s body language suggests someone much younger, though you could chalk that up to his way of capturing the character’s social anxiety, depression and possible autism (all of which are left undiagnosed here). We’re also told which medications he’s taking — Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Ativan “as needed” — which could be clues for those familiar with those drugs.

The movie opens with Evan freaking out about the first day of a new school year. Whereas an awful lot of the stage show takes place in Evan’s bedroom, Chbosky moves him through that familiar corridor of angst that is a locker-lined hallway and into a high-stress pep rally as the character sings the feelings he’s hiding on the inside — about being invisible, inadequate, insecure. No matter how popular most people feel in high school, pretty much anyone can relate to “Waving Through a Window.” But will they recognize themselves in Platt’s performance? The actor plays it agonizingly uptight, as if recoiling from the very peers whose attention he craves.

Overworked and under-available, his mom (Julianne Moore) has sent him to a therapist, who suggested the writing exercise that gives the film its title: Evan is supposed to address letters to himself each day, a strategy that goes south when one accidentally falls into Connor’s hands hours before the character commits suicide. His parents find the message and assume that Connor wrote it — a device we might accept in a classic comedy of errors, but which is hard to stomach in a more serious drama.

“Connor didn’t write this,” Evan tries to tell them, but they insist on interpreting the note as Connor’s last words. Maybe that happens. Certainly, the motives for suicide are rarely clear, leaving loved ones to deal with grief in their own complex ways. Adams is especially good at conveying Cynthia Murphy’s need to make excuses for Connor, to believe her son was a better person than others remember. In the movie, this desire compels Evan to go along with the charade, but never quite explains how deeply he commits, counterfeiting emails from Connor to make the family feel better.

Levenson has retooled the Murphy family dynamic somewhat, turning Pino’s character into a stepdad while preserving Zoe’s initial skepticism. She’s wounded by the way her brother treated her, as Stevenson makes the daring (but not entirely unreasonable) claim that “Connor was a bad person,” as Zoe points out — another way the script justifies Evan’s deception, by giving Connor’s mourners a more sympathetic version to remember.

In the stage show, Evan’s classmates were nearly as flawed as he was. Jared, his only friend at school (a “family friend” at that), was obnoxiously homophobic — which could be realistic, but runs counter to the faux-progressive values fans read into the musical. In the movie, Jared is gay (represented by “Atypical” actor Nik Dodani), which makes his jokes in the “Sincerely, Me” song land differently, and there are huge posters plastered around school with slogans such as “Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Let’s celebrate it.” The screenplay preserves its cynicism about how the social-media generation exploits tragedy (as when the kids who bullied Connor pose for selfies in front of his locker), but softens Alana’s character.

Reconceived as a cheerleader and an extracurricular overachiever who identifies with Connor’s mental condition, as opposed to a narcissist looking to ride his tragedy to glory, the new-and-improved Alana elevates the tone of the entire film. As played by “The Hate U Give” star Amandla Stenberg, she demonstrates the movie’s thesis that everyone — even those who appear to coast through high school, seemingly comfortable in their own skin — struggles with moments of depression and self-doubt. More impressive still, Stenberg co-wrote the song her character uses to make that point: “The Anonymous Ones.”

It’s one of two original numbers added for the movie, though the other — “A Little Closer,” by Pasek and Paul — isn’t especially good. Chbosky deploys it well, incorporating the song (which Ryan sings as Connor) into an extended atonement sequence, which is clearly the movie’s way of having Evan redeem himself. And it works. Even if the song’s quite forgettable, Evan emerges a more mature character. The team behind the film haven’t necessarily fixed all that was wrong with the show, but they’ve been listening, at least, and that’s a start.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (opener), Sept. 9, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 137 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release, presented in association with Perfect World Pictures, of a Marc Platt Prods. production. Producers: Marc Platt, Adam Siegel. Executive producers: Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, Michael Bederman, Stacey Minidich.
• Crew: Director: Stephen Chbosky. Screenplay: Steven Levenson, based on the musical stage play with book by Steven Levenson and music and lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul. Camera: Brandon Trost. Editor: Anne McCabe. Music: Dan Romer, Justin Paul.
• With: Ben Platt, Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Nik Dodani, Julianne Moore, Amy Adams, Colton Ryan, Danny Pino.

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‘Dear Evan Hansen’ review

A fragile high schooler’s lie spins dizzyingly out of control as this smart Broadway musical smash finally hits the West End

Time Out says

This wildly hyped Broadway hit musical is basically ‘Faust’ for high-schoolers. A nerdy, anxiety-ridden teenage boy sells his soul (well, his integrity, anyway) for the popularity and appreciation he’s spent his whole life craving. But his guilt makes every YouTube follow or Twitter retweet become excruciating – and then the whole fragile edifice comes crashing down.

It’s easy to see why ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ has won so many fans since it first premiered in 2015: it mixes agonising tension with surgingly catchy songs by songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who’ve also worked on movies ‘La La Land’ and ‘The Greatest Showman’. The standout numbers are emotive rock ballads like ‘You Will be Found’, the kind of thing you’d wave your lighter along to if the West End’s theatres weren’t imperilled enough already. But the score’s also stuffed with inspirations from emo to bluegrass, and Evan’s mum gets a gravelly howl of frustration that could be straight out of Alanis Morissette’s back catalogue.  

The intense emotionalism of the score is characteristic of a musical where everything’s dialled up to 11. Evan Hansen isn’t just your archetypal teen movie loser; he’s as fragile as a peeled egg, bouncing from humiliation to humiliation in a high school that’s like a machine designed to slice him up. A West End newcomer, 21-year-old Sam Tutty glows with sweat and goodness, bringing integrity to a storyline that’s somewhere between ingenious and tortuous. Evan’s mother gets him treatment for social anxiety, and one of the tasks his counsellor sets him is to write an uplifting letter to himself. But Connor, a boy he hardly knows, takes this letter off the computer room printer. When Connor dies, it’s assumed to be a suicide note that’s addressed to Evan. Evan keeps up the pretence and ends up reverse engineering a friendship, then building a viral social media campaign against loneliness. 

Steven Levenson’s book is painfully astute on the way a lie can build and build, and take on a life of its own. Connor is no longer a boy; he’s an idea, something that’s discomfitingly explored in a scene where Evan moves his ghost about like a puppet as he and his almost-friend Jared try to give him a backstory. And when a lie’s helping save other lives, does the truth even matter? There’s a growing, yawning chasm where the real Connor should be; everyone benefits from his absence to mould him into the friend, the ideal son, the sympathiser they never had. 

Evan benefits most of all, vampirically feeding off his fading memories of Connor to build a stronger, more confident version of himself. Tutty’s sharp, painful-looking mannerisms visibly soften in the loving warmth of Connor’s grieving parents, as they offer him the attention and homecooked meals his own mother can’t give him. His voice is sometimes overwhelmed by the full-bodied live band that accompanies him, but its fragility is essential. If he was any more confident, any less damaged, than his actions would seem truly monstrous. 

As it is, the deceptions that Evan stacks up with sweaty palms don’t collapse quite as satisfyingly or conclusively as you might expect. The whole musical seems to be building to an explosion that’s deferred, and deferred, then weakly fizzles out like a school chemistry project. But then, this story’s biggest conflicts are internal, rather than external. It looks so simple but there’s something incredibly accomplished about the way that ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ fleshes out its lovable protagonist’s small world of home, school and laptop – then creates a trap that feeds him and poisons him all at once.

This review is from 2019; ‘Dear Evan Hanson’ has extended to October 2022 with Sam Tutty still in the lead.

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The black list, gm incubator fund announce writer-driven shorts grant recipients, breaking news.

Toronto Review: Opening-Night Film ‘Dear Evan Hansen’

By Valerie Complex

Valerie Complex

Associate Editor/Film Writer

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Dear Evan Hansen is Hollywood’s newest entry on the road to reviving the musical genre. The Broadway musical by musicians and lyricist Benj Pasek and Justin Paul is coming to the big screen via Universal to see if it can capitalize on general audience approval.

So how does the film, which opened the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday night, stack up against the stage adaptation? Well, it stands closer to Rob Marshall’s  Into the Woods  (an adaptation of a Broadway play), meaning it’s terrible.  Dear Evan Hansen could have been enjoyable, but there are too many glaring problems that can’t be ignored for the sake of entertainment.

Ben Platt stars as Evan Hansen, a frail-looking high school student who considers himself invisible to all. He’s not popular, not attractive to girls, and even other nerds don’t want to bother with him. The only confidant he has is Jared Kalwani (Nik Dodani), who considers Evan nothing more than an acquaintance. A golden opportunity for change comes when Evan crosses paths with Connor Murphy, an emo-type youngster who scares his classmates with his angst, who happens to be the brother of his crush Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever). Evan walks around school with his arm in a cast, and Connor offers to sign it. After signing, Connor finds a letter Evan wrote to himself as a class assignment and runs off with it.

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The letter is found by Connor’s parents Cynthia and Larry, after he suddenly dies. They want to meet Evan because they think he was their son’s only friend due to what was said in the note and seeing Connor’s name written on his cast. Instead of coming clean, Evan fabricates an entire history that never existed between him and their son. This allows him to create the fantasy life he’s always wanted, which includes getting closer to Zoe.

The more he continues to withhold the truth, the more elaborate his lies, and soon he’s lying to everyone, including social media. Evan exploits Connor’s memory for clout. He’s famous now, dating Zoe and loved by Connor’s parents. His warped web of lies is so powerful he truly begins to believe he’s telling the truth. But his delusions don’t last forever, and when the bubble pops, it’s clear Evan had no idea of the impact his lies would have on himself and others. Sure he knew he wasn’t honest, but he honestly thought everything would turn out OK. The kid is a hot mess.

The Broadway musical is popular among theatergoers, as many found it relatable to people who consider themselves outcasts with little to no support. The show won several Tony Awards for the actors and the production. Still, it is an irreparably problematic piece of work that manipulates the audience by forcing them to feel sympathy for being a compulsive liar whose own mental illness is exploited. To top it all off, Evan is forgiven by everyone around him and sees no real consequences for his actions just because they can understand where he’s coming from?! This story is complete madness from beginning to end, but at least the actors can sing.

The film’s stars are good singers, particularly Amandla Stenberg, who has a commanding voice that stands out because she sounds natural and is the only one not pretending she’s performing at the Music Box theater in New York. The music arrangements are solid, but why does every single song start with the actor singing in a hushed, monotone voice that goes up and down until it’s time to belt those notes out? Was that a creative choice for the film, or is that how it is in the show as well? Either way, it’s frustrating to sit through that for nearly 2.5 hours.

Dear Evan Hansen is an exercise in restraint. You either want to scream at the screen or shrink down in your chair from suffering secondhand embarrassment from these characters and their actions. The story is convinced it’s making a bold statement about mental illness, finding community and class structures, but it feels inauthentic and shallow. Connor is being exploited from beyond the grave and doesn’t choose about being on the receiving end. This film won’t inspire empathy or sympathy but disdain and indifference.

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Dear Evan Hansen

Film adaptation of the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical about Evan Hansen, a high-school senior with social anxiety disorder, and his journey of self-discovery and acceptance after a cl... Read all Film adaptation of the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical about Evan Hansen, a high-school senior with social anxiety disorder, and his journey of self-discovery and acceptance after a classmate's suicide. Film adaptation of the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical about Evan Hansen, a high-school senior with social anxiety disorder, and his journey of self-discovery and acceptance after a classmate's suicide.

• Stephen Chbosky
• Steven Levenson
• Julianne Moore
• Kaitlyn Dever
• 388 User reviews
• 147 Critic reviews
• 39 Metascore
• 8 nominations

• Evan Hansen

• Heidi Hansen

• Cynthia Murphy

• (as Daniel Pino)

• Connor Murphy

• Jared Kalwani

• (as Hadiya Eshe')

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia The vocal performances in the film were recorded almost entirely live on set, specifically to ensure that Ben Platt's vocals sounded as genuine and authentic as possible when he sang on screen.
• Goofs In "Requiem" when Zoe is driving during the first close up of the speedometer, the speed can be seen increasing while the vehicle gear indicator suddenly changes to "P" and "R".

Evan Hansen : [from trailer] If you knew who I am, how broken I am.

Heidi Hansen : [from trailer] I already know you. And I love you.

• Crazy credits The Universal logo appears at the beginning of the film itself, underscored by the opening three-note motif from "Waving Through a Window," which is played at a slower tempo. The logo does not appear on the film's trailer and TV spots.
• Connections Edited into Amanda the Jedi Show: Faster than your First Time Reviews 2 - Best and Worst of TIFF 2021 (2021)
• Soundtracks Waving Through a Window from the Broadway Musical Dear Evan Hansen Music and Lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul Performed by Ben Platt (uncredited) Copyright © 2017 Pick in a Pinch Music (ASCAP) and breathelike music (ASCAP) Administered by Kobalt Music Publishing America, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

User reviews 388

• Dec 12, 2021
• How long is Dear Evan Hansen? Powered by Alexa
• We all know that Ben Platt playing Evan was a no brainer, but none of the other original cast members from the musical, other than Colton Ryan, were cast. Why was that?
• Where can I watch the Dear Evan Hansen movie?
• Will there be new songs?
• September 24, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
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• Evan Hansen Thân Mến
• Fayetteville, Georgia, USA
• Marc Platt Productions
• Perfect World Pictures
• Universal Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $28,000,000 (estimated)
• $15,002,646
• Sep 26, 2021
• $19,133,454

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• Runtime 2 hours 17 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Dear Evan Hansen Review

Ben platt, you will be found wanting..

Dear Evan Hansen will hit theaters on Sept. 24.

In the film version of Dear Evan Hansen, Ben Platt’s face is a problem. From his first close-up, his is undeniably one of a full-grown man, who has been comically miscast as a sheepish teen boy. No slouched shoulders or downcast eyes can hide that. Sure, Platt originated the role of the titular teen when the coming-of-age musical — and his portrayal — won scads of accolades on Broadway. All the same, allowing him to reprise the role in the movie is not just a major misstep, but the most glaring mistake of director Stephen Chbosky’s wonky adaptation.

The plot of Dear Evan Hansen feels like something out of Riverdale, audacious and disturbing with heavy doses of teen angst, hot button issues, musical numbers, and dysfunctional family drama playing out in a posh home. Even still, this movie can’t hold a candle to that outrageous series’ sense of style.

What’s the best movie musical based on a stage production?

In an unremarkable high school in Maryland, Evan Hansen (Platt) is a wallflower unnoticed by everyone. That is until a strange twist of fate -- after a classmate’s death by suicide -- makes him the unexpected center of attention. A misunderstanding leads the Murphy family to believe that Evan was the secret best friend of their recently deceased son, Connor (Colton Ryan). Panicked but also desperate to be a part of the world of this affluent, effusive family — that happens to include his secret crush Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) — Evan lies, spinning more and more elaborate stories of this fictional friendship. Between these grieving parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino), their wounded daughter, and the lonely boy, a fragile bond blossoms. But as Evan’s story goes viral, their shady solace is threatened.

This melodramatic premise is enhanced by the stage show’s songs, written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. What Evan can’t dare say to the world, he expresses through belted ballads about his choking loneliness and unspoken infatuation for Zoe. Similarly, the Murphy family’s private forms of mourning are displayed through a three-part “Requiem.” Yet, the most powerful songs are those that speak most directly to struggles with mental illness. From the original Broadway Cast Recording, “You Will Be Found” is a showstopper, literally spotlighting Evan so he can sing about how hard it is to be alone in the darkness and the importance of community. Then, Pasek and Paul created two new tracks for the movie (“A Little Closer” and “Anonymous Ones”) that wisely give voice to the struggle of other characters, adding new depth and smart opportunities to allow the film’s other stars to shine.

New Fall Movies 2021: 40 Films to Look Forward To

In his numbers, Platt’s performance is Broadway big and bold. He’s got a gorgeous voice, but his force feels awkward in the mundane setting that Chbosky has created. In his previous film, Perks of Being a Wallflower (based on his novel), Chbosky effectively presented a sense of the energy and uniqueness of Pittsburgh and the dizzying high school that intimidated and enchanted his troubled hero. In Dear Evan Hansen, the town, high school, houses, and a much-talked-about apple orchard are achingly generic, captured in uninspired cinematography and painted in muted hues. Within dull grey walls, the showmanship of Platt’s singing feels out of nowhere. Perhaps if his hometown was special in any way, then Platt’s spectacular singing would show that Evan fits in more than he thinks. But as is, Evan is right to feel out of place.

Even when Platt is not singing, he seems on stage. His performance of youth is made up of practiced awkwardness. Every twitch and shrug looks rehearsed, as if Platt can’t shake the routine worn in from eight shows a week. Notably, he’s the only Broadway cast member that has been brought in for the movie. Sadly, amid a cast of much stronger screen actors, he is not a strength but a relic.

Co-stars Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Colton Ryan, and Nik Dodani are also twenty-somethings playing teens. They look more baby-faced, which helps. But more importantly, their performances feel grounded, not like they’re playing to the cheap seats. Dever, who has wowed in Booksmart , Justified , and Unbelievable, is riveting as a girl filled with rage, pain, and a glimmering hope for healing. Though playing an underwritten wise-cracking sidekick, Dodani proves a scene-stealer with sharp comedic timing and easy charm. As mysterious Connor, Ryan first radiates an unsettling fury. Then in song numbers (one in flashback, one a fantasy), he shows a softer and even sillier side that could make this part his breakthrough. Yet Stenberg proves the standout, taking a flimsy role of the seemingly perfect student and bolstering it with nuance, charm, and a soulful new song, “The Anonymous Ones.” Opposite Platt, she doesn’t just dazzle, she schools him on how to play a complicated yet compelling teen onscreen. Then, there’s Julianne Moore, coming to blow all of these youngsters out of the water.

Chbosky had the incredible gift of landing Amy Adams and Moore in dueling mom roles. Adams is reliably riveting, but Moore takes her only song and turns it into a soul-rattling monologue. For much of the movie, she’s given cliched working-mom schtick, desperately chasing her troubled son for any insights into his life or mind. It’s such a thankless series of scenes that I wondered why Moore bothered to sign on. But then comes “So Big / So Small,” in which Evan’s mom sings to him and Moore sinks her teeth into the moment suitable for a Best Actress clip. She is a true-blue movie star, and Platt pales in comparison.

Platt performs youth earnestly but unconvincingly. This is a huge problem, because without the constant reminder that Evan is young and thereby deeply naïve, the character comes off as heinously selfish. Sure, it’s understandable how he stumbles into this tricky scenario. However, as his doubling down grows darker and more disturbing, a close-up of a grown man with a furrowed brow and bit lip doesn’t soften the sharp turns of this troubling plotline. Admittedly, those who loved the Broadway show will likely look with kinder eyes on this reckless reprisal, but the suspension of disbelief audiences offer between stage and screen varies greatly. Simply put, Platt sabotages the film.

In Dear Evan Hansen, Ben Platt reprises the role that made him a hit on Broadway. However, he’s a bad fit for the banal setting that director Stephen Chbosky plunks down in this clunky musical. While Platt’s singing is stellar, his performance is a superficial impersonation of youth, which goes through the motions but doesn’t land the emotions. Platt is outshone by a supporting cast that includes Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, and Julianne Moore, all of whom offer exhilaratingly poignant moments. Though Chbosky’s staging is uninspired, the songs — both old and new — are nonetheless powerful, which might be enough of a lure for fans of the show or musicals in general. Sadly, Platt’s calamitous casting dooms this adaptation to cringe-worthy awkwardness.

In This Article

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Summary The breathtaking, generation-defining Broadway phenomenon becomes a soaring cinematic event as Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winner Ben Platt reprises his role as an anxious, isolated high schooler aching for understanding and belonging amid the chaos and cruelty of the social-media age.

Directed By : Stephen Chbosky

Written By : Steven Levenson

Dear Evan Hansen

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Dear evan hansen, common sense media reviewers.

Uneven adaptation of popular musical addresses suicide.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Encourages honest communication, empathy, compassi

Evan is a deeply flawed person who tells a lie and

Main characters are all White; supporting characte

Several discussions of a central death by suicide,

A couple of kissing scenes, jokes about Evan's the

Occasional strong language includes "s--t," "bats-

Adults drink wine at dinner. Song lyrics include r

Parents need to know that Dear Evan Hansen is the stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning 2016 musical about a lonely high school senior who's mistaken for a dead classmate's best friend and then entangled in his family's grief. That classmate's death by suicide is a focal point of the story, and…

Positive Messages

Encourages honest communication, empathy, compassion, perseverance. As story makes very clear, lying, even out of a sense of kindness, has consequences, as does being manipulative. Stresses importance of a strong bond between parents and teens, the need for trusted adults, friends, or "chosen family" with whom vulnerable kids and teens can discuss difficult topics. Addresses the power -- both for better and worse -- of social media.

Positive Role Models

Evan is a deeply flawed person who tells a lie and then allows that lie to spread into more and more lies that grow out of control. But his friendship and lies do comfort the grieving Murphys, who believe that Evan is their dead son/brother's best (and only) friend. Evan's mother is hardworking and devoted, even if she's not always present (she has to work a lot of shifts to make ends meet). Zoe is loving and honest. The Murphys are generous even through their grief. Alana thinks of everyone who can be helped if the Connor Project allows those with mental health struggles or suicidal ideation to come forward and seek help.

Diverse Representations

Main characters are all White; supporting characters include a young Black woman and a South Asian and gay character. Some socioeconomic and invisible-disability diversity, including mental health conditions (OCD, anxiety, ADHD).

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Several discussions of a central death by suicide, as well as how Evan fell out of a tree and fractured his arm. A high schooler yells in the face of a classmate and then pushes him; he falls down.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple of kissing scenes, jokes about Evan's therapy letters to himself being "sex letters" and about a character's experience (or lack thereof), scenes of teen couples dancing and embracing at a school dance. Shirtless locker room scene. References to someone being "hot," and a couple of risqué song lyrics (about getting hard and about rubbing nipples and moaning, and the word "kinky" is used).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional strong language includes "s--t," "bats--t," "holy s--t," one use of "f--kin'," and social media language insulting Connor and his family.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults drink wine at dinner. Song lyrics include references to drug use.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Dear Evan Hansen is the stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning 2016 musical about a lonely high school senior who's mistaken for a dead classmate's best friend and then entangled in his family's grief. That classmate's death by suicide is a focal point of the story, and there are many references to his death, depression, and substance abuse. Expect occasional strong language, including one "f--kin'" and a few uses of "s--t." A character tells sexual jokes, and song lyrics include a few risqué lines (i.e., references to rubbing nipples and getting hard), but visuals are limited to a couple of kisses, dancing, and flirting. The main character's decision to continually manufacture lies (even if, at first, they're told to help a grieving family) taints his initially selfless intent. Ultimately, the story encourages honest communication, empathy, compassion, and perseverance and addresses the powerful role that social media can play in teens' lives. Ben Platt reprises his Broadway role as Evan, but the rest of the cast -- including Julianne Moore , Amy Adams , Kaitlin Dever , and Amandla Stenberg -- is new. Stephen Chbosky directs. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (4)
• Kids say (40)

Based on 4 parent reviews

Powerful messages

Pretty tame, great for fans of the original musical, what's the story.

In DEAR EVAN HANSEN, high school senior Evan ( Ben Platt ) has started the school year with his arm in a cast, only family friend Jared (Nik Dodani) to talk to, and a crush from afar on Zoe Murphy ( Kaitlin Dever ). Evan, who has an anxiety disorder, writes letters to himself signed by other people as part of an exercise recommended by his therapist. When Evan's classmate Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), the school outcast -- and Zoe's brother -- dies by suicide, the Murphys find one of Evan's letters in his possession and believe that it's Connor's final note. Their mistaken belief about Connor and Evan's friendship is furthered by the fact that Connor had been the only person to sign Evan's cast. Evan initially wants to tell the Murphys the truth, but Mrs. Murphy ( Amy Adams ) is so relieved to know that Connor died with a secret best friend that Evan can't bear to clear up the mistake. But he takes the lie to the next level when he enlists Nik to fabricate emails between Connor and Evan so that Mrs. Murphy, Mr. Murphy (Danny Pino), and Zoe can get a glimpse of Connor and Evan's "friendship." As Evan grows closer to the Murphy family and benefits from his perceived proximity to Connor, his lies spin out of control, and he even gaslights his single mother, Heidi ( Julianne Moore ). The situation gets progressively more manipulative and indefensible as Evan and Zoe grow close romantically and the student body president ( Amandla Stenberg ) founds a charitable project in Connor's name and asks Evan to be on the board.

Is It Any Good?

This adaptation benefits from its all-star cast and Platt's amazing voice, but it also highlights the differences between stage and screen -- i.e., a musical's book isn't necessarily meant to be a screenplay. It's undeniable that Platt can sing, and anyone who's listened to the Tony-winning show's cast recording or was lucky enough to see the original stars on Broadway can attest to his talents on the Great White Way. But on the big screen, five years after he originated the role, Platt feels too old -- and too theatrical in his physicality (which works perfectly on-stage but can be too much onscreen) -- to seamlessly portray Evan. The shortcomings of the show's book are glaring in a two-hours-plus film, and although some changes were made for the better, it's ultimately disappointing, because director Stephen Chbosky is a YA and adaptation specialist.

It's hard not to feel like this version of Dear Evan Hansen doesn't meet the inflated expectations of fans of Platt and Broadway. That's not to say that there aren't aspects that work well, like the women in the ensemble: Adams, Dever, Moore, and Stenberg all add an authenticity to their parts and an emotional range to their songs. Moore is somewhat underused as Evan's always-at-work mom but in the last act gives a powerful performance of "So Big/So Small , " while Stenberg contributes to the new-for-the-film song "The Anonymous Ones." Dever and Adams provide different perspectives on grief, first from losing Connor and then from feeling betrayed by the eventual and inevitable outing of Evan's deception. That deception and how it's handled in the movie is one of the film's biggest missteps, because it renders Evan unlikable nearly beyond redemption. Still, while this musical adaptation isn't going to top any best-of lists, Platt's voice helps make up for his acting. For some of its individual parts, Dear Evan Hansen is worth seeing, but as a sum of those parts, it lacks the cohesion necessary to elevate it beyond a singularly focused vehicle for Platt to re-create his award-winning stage performance.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how Dear Evan Hansen was adapted for the movies. For those familiar with the musical: What do you think of the changes made? What worked better on-screen than onstage, and vice versa? What other musicals do you wish were turned into movies?

How does the movie portray suicide and its aftermath? In what ways does the story normalize mental health issues? When is it important to talk about mental health, especially if you're worried about a friend or family member? What resources are available to help both kids and adults ?

What lessons does Evan learn throughout the movie? Is lying morally wrong if it's for a selfless reason? What about when it ends up being for personal gain as well? Does intent matter, or only impact?

Who -- if anyone -- is a role model in the story? What character strengths do they display? Why are compassion , empathy , and perseverance so important to show in movies and pop culture?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 24, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : December 7, 2021
• Cast : Ben Platt , Kaitlyn Dever , Amandla Stenberg , Julianne Moore , Amy Adams
• Director : Stephen Chbosky
• Inclusion Information : Gay actors, Female actors, Non-Binary actors, Bisexual actors, Pansexual actors, Black actors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Musical
• Topics : High School , Music and Sing-Along
• Character Strengths : Communication , Compassion , Empathy , Perseverance
• Run time : 131 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language and some suggestive references
• Last updated : April 22, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘Dear Evan Hansen’ Review: You’ve Got a Friend (Not)

Ben Platt returns in the movie version of the Broadway hit about a lonely teenager who exploits a classmate’s tragedy.

• Share full article

‘Dear Evan Hansen’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The director stephen chbosky narrates a sequence from his film, featuring ben platt..

I’m Stephen Chbosky. I am the director of the film adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen.” “(SINGING) Step out, step out of the sun if you keep getting burned.” What we’re looking at here is Ben Platt reprising his role that he made famous on Broadway of Evan Hansen. And in this moment in the film, we’ve met Evan already in his bedroom where he has more than communicated how much anxiety that he carries with him. We’re learning that this is the first day of school. We’re learning like just the voices in his head. And he just spins out and he started singing this wonderful song called “Waving Through a Window.” What is distinct about this scene is that he’s actually— if you look at what’s actually happening, even though he is singing, what the singing in this moment represents is a thought in his head. He’s not actually talking, you know, in the real world. Like he’s not talking right now. He’s not actually singing it walking through a hallway. If you notice, none of the people around him are dancing. It’s not “High School Musical.” There’s no performance it’s just he is alone in the world. “(SINGING) Make a sound. When you’re falling in a forest and there’s nobody around, do you ever really crash or even make a sound?” And everything that we shot, we wanted to show how he’s kind of lost in the world and how no one pays attention to him and that this entire song is a thought in his head. And in a lot of ways, it’s like a cry for help. “(SINGING) On the outside always looking in will I—” There was visual choreography. And even though the people in the hallways are not dancing, there are certain things that are hit. Like there’s locker slams sometimes on the beat. Or there’s like social media, which is an omnipresent part of the story, that are happening sometimes on the beat and sometimes it’s happening slightly off. So all these things always go back to kind of the noise in his head. It was choreographed, but not in the traditional musical sense. It was really choreographed to his emotions. That was always the main thing, the emotions. Where is he living? What does this mean? How does it affect him emotionally? “(SINGING) Is anybody waving? Waving? Waving? Whoa-oh-oh-oh!”

By Jeannette Catsoulis

Making an ungainly leap from Broadway stage to movie screen, the musical “ Dear Evan Hansen ” is the story of a liar, an accomplished fabulist who uses a troubled classmate’s self-harm to gain popularity. Yet the movie (I assume in keeping with its Tony Award-winning predecessor , which I have not seen) wants us not only to sympathize with this character, but ultimately forgive him. That’s a very big ask.

It’s not simply that 28-year-old Ben Platt, who reprises his stage role as Evan, is as unconvincing a high-school senior as John Travolta was in “Grease.” Gripped by crippling social anxiety, Evan is a sweaty-palmed mess, his darting eyes and coiled body language repelling other students as he sings lustily about feeling unseen. (The songs are mainly by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.) When a fellow outcast, the volatile Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), takes his own life while in possession of one of Evan’s therapeutic, self-addressed letters, Connor’s devastated mother and stepfather (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) become convinced that Evan was Connor’s best friend.

Rather than correct this simple misunderstanding, Evan begins to relish its benefits, going so far as to enlist an acquaintance (a wry Nik Dodani) to help fabricate an email exchange between Connor and himself. Welcomed into the luxurious Murphy home, he grows closer to Connor’s sister, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), on whom he has a crush. Students seek him out at school and his speech at Connor’s memorial goes viral. With each embellishment, the attention and social-media likes increase; only in the trusting eyes of Connor’s mother do we see the cruelty of Evan’s deception.

Written by Steven Levenson and awkwardly directed by Stephen Chbosky (who’s no stranger to teen drama) , “Dear Evan Hansen” is a troubling work, one that constructs a devious, superficial and at times comedic plot around adolescent mental-health issues. The dialogue, interspersed with hilariously on-the-nose song lyrics, is trite; yet the story shines a useful spotlight on the internet’s traitorous turns and the way social media exploits tragedy. In one telling scene, students pose for selfies at Connor’s flower-bedecked locker, conveniently forgetting this was someone they had previously disliked and ostracized.

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Dear Evan Hansen (United States/Canada, 2021)

While watching Dear Evan Hansen , I was reminded of the 1994 film I’ll Do Anything . Originally designed as a musical (with eight songs by Prince), the decision was made in the editing room to release the Nick Nolte vehicle as a straight drama. The songs, regardless of their inherent quality, were deemed to be too much of distraction. I feel the same way about Dear Evan Hansen . The story, about a high school senior struggling with social anxiety and depression, doesn’t need the songs. In fact, they detract from the narrative. They are encumbrances. And they’re not very good.

Based on the acclaimed stage play, Dear Evan Hansen retains many of the plot points of its inspiration while making certain changes to amp up the cinematic elements. At least two problems remain. The first is the artificiality of the narrative’s house of cards. The second is that the movie does everything in its power to keep the audience from recognizing how misanthropic Evan is. In almost any other movie, he would be a villain but Steven Levenson’s screenplay goes through contortions to get the audience to sympathize with him. The film’s sunny closing scene might be its most egregious misstep, although nearly everything the entire final 15 minutes feels false.

Dear Evan Hansen starts out by introducing us to the title character (played by Ben Platt, who originated the role on stage) – a loner with only one “family friend,” Jared (Nik Dodani); a mother (Julianne Moore) who’s rarely around; and a crush on his classmate, Zoe Murphy (Kaitlyn Dever). Evan suffers from extreme social anxiety (and, as we later learn, depression). An assignment from his therapist has him write letters to himself. One day, one of those missives is intercepted at a school printer by a resident bully, Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), who belittles Evan. Later, when Connor is found dead by his own hand, Evan’s letter, which is in his pocket, is mistaken as a suicide note…addressed to Evan.

Connor’s mother, Cynthia (Amy Adams), and step-father, Larry (Danny Pino), mistakenly deduce that Connor and Evan were friends. After feebly trying to deny this, Evan falls into the role and starts spinning lies about the time he spent with Connor, including a day when they visited an orchard together. Evan is co-opted to join an anti-suicide activist group run by Alanna (Amandla Stenberg), who encourages him to speak at a memorial service she is organizing for Connor. Evan’s seemingly heartfelt speech goes viral and he becomes a social media sensation. He begins to fabricate past exchanges with Connor, acting almost like Cyrano by putting words into the dead Connor’s e-mails. All this brings him closer to Zoe and, in a moment from his fantasies, they share a kiss.

Songwriters Justin Paul and Benj Pasek have done some notable work in the past. Their screen credits include The Greatest Showman and La La Land . Based on those films, it’s possible to conclude that their strength lies in big show-stoppers featuring complex choreography. There’s not much of that sort to be found in Dear Evan Hansen ; the numbers are mostly dreary ballads and every time someone starts singing, the movie is the poorer for it.

Ethan’s crime is opportunism, but he uses it not as a means to achieve wealth, power, or fame. Instead, his goal is to achieve belonging. He’s a sad, tragic figure but the filmmakers, Levenson and Stephen Chbosky, work overtime to paint him as a victim worthy of our sympathy. When Evan eventually acknowledges the damage he has done, it feels like too little, too late. There’s a dissonance between the film’s darker subjects and its seeming desire to offer something uplifting at the end. The coda feels dishonest and makes it as difficult to root for the film’s success as it does for the main character.

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Review: Sorry, haters, the movie version of ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ isn’t a train wreck

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“Dear Evan Hansen” has already generated so many fierce opinions that it’s almost startling to discover onscreen the same disarming musical that captivated Broadway audiences and teenage fans everywhere.

Sorry, haters, the film isn’t a train wreck. This musical, which had its Broadway premiere in 2016, works better in the theater . But the translation to the screen is smoother than expected.

Director Stephen Chbosky ( “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” ) has a sensitivity to adolescent angst and carefully navigates a dramatic journey that is unusually complicated for a musical. The film cries out for pruning but the story survives the move into a more realistic realm.

Movie musicals are hard, and this one is especially challenging, but not because of the splashy numbers. “Dear Evan Hansen” has a few, but for the most part Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s Tony-winning score gives voice to the whiplash fears and longings of children and parents caught in the funhouse of the social media age.

Maturity turns out to be not such a bad thing for a show that has done some soul-searching since it was last seen onstage. Steven Levenson has made both minor and major changes to his Tony-winning book.

Some of the smaller character tweaks are designed to bring the work into alignment with shifting cultural sentiments. But the overhauled ending, which sheds more light on the title character’s motivation without exculpating him, suggests the difficulty of what’s being dramatically attempted.

Ben Platt, reprising his star-making performance, plays Evan Hansen, a high schooler crippled by social anxiety who gets caught up in a lie, which turns a dweeb into a hero after the story goes viral. Platt’s Tony-winning portrayal — one of the more memorable Broadway breakouts in recent memory — conveyed Evan’s fragility with such expressive sympathy that it was possible to follow the character down a morally dubious rabbit hole and not be filled with regret in the morning.

The plot hinges on the fate of a note that Evan has been encouraged by his therapist to write to himself to improve his self-esteem. The letter, offering gentle words of encouragement, winds up in the hands of Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), a loner with a volatile temper, who is seen by his peers as the student most likely to become a school shooter.

Connor doesn’t bring an automatic weapon to the cafeteria, but he does take his own life. No suicide note is left, but Evan’s letter is still in his possession, leaving the impression that this friendless boy did in fact share a secret bond with another outcast.

Connor’s mother (Amy Adams) is so moved by this discovery that she and Connor’s stepfather (Danny Pino) welcome Evan into their affluent home. Raised by a single mom (Julianne Moore) who works irregular hours as a nurse, Evan is not accustomed to elaborate home-cooked meals and patient paternal interest.

But the real attraction is Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), Connor’s sister, with whom Evan has long been infatuated. Before his newfound fame, he was an apologetic tongue-tied mess in her presence. But as the lie about Evan’s friendship with Connor grows more elaborate, Zoe transforms from skeptical to affectionate. Evan’s confidence around her rises, though guilt and frantic worry aren’t so easily sidestepped.

This setup takes quite a bit of time not only to recap but to sit through — and we still haven’t even hit the crisis point. With all the tinkering that went into bringing the work up to snuff with the moral scourges of Twitter — who have criticized the show for lionizing a character they would still like to see more severely punished — it’s hard to understand why the plot wasn’t digested further.

“Dear Evan Hansen” is never going to appeal to audiences who demand that art rigorously enforce a righteous worldview. I find it ironic that I’m defending the musical, because it left me cold when I first encountered it off-Broadway. But the show improved on the way to Broadway, and Platt’s stunning portrayal, so resourceful in turning musical shadings into interior meaning, never left a queasy feeling.

The film preserves this deeply inhabited performance, though the actor is now about a decade older than the character and youth isn’t easy to counterfeit on film. Compounding this issue, the camera occasionally pries when it ought to keep a respectful distance, especially in the film’s later stages when Evan is in the full froth of adolescent grief and terror. Platt’s commitment is total, but he needs more space and perhaps a less funny-looking hairstyle.

Fortunately, the changes to the script don’t seem like artistic compromises. The psychological elaborations may not be entirely necessary but they are in keeping with the spirit of a musical that wants, from the first strains of “Waving Through a Window,” to get inside teenage suffering and alienation.

Mental health struggles are shown to affect not only conspicuous basket cases like Evan but also model students like Alana Beck (a dazzling Amandla Stenberg ), whose overachieving nature (humorously lampooned on Broadway) is revealed in the film to mask invisible scars. “The Anonymous Ones,” a new song co-written by Stenberg, deepens not only the character but also the handling of a central theme.

Other changes move in the same humanizing direction. The role of Jared, Evan’s wise-ass “family friend” (he doesn’t want Evan to presume they’re actually buddies) and accomplice in exploiting what was initially an accidental lie, is now portrayed by Nik Dodani as an out gay teen. Connor’s suicide still feels like a plot device, but the stigma and sorrow of the character’s family is made painfully real. And Ryan, a charismatic performer, thrills in his ghostly musical returns.

Both Adams, who possesses a beautiful singing voice, and Moore, who more gingerly approaches her songs, imbue their maternal roles with overwhelming feeling. When they look at Evan, their eyes practically bathe him in compassion.

Their intensity recalls for an audience the high stakes behind the transition from childhood to adulthood. Evan is receiving an education, both sentimental through his relationship with Dever’s Zoe (who’s more complicatedly authentic and therefore better than a dream) and unsentimental through his eventual reckoning with the consequences of his inexcusable actions.

Too grown up for fantasy, “Dear Evan Hansen” offers a glimpse of the long, hard road ahead.

'Dear Evan Hansen'

Rated: PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language and some suggestive references Running time: 2 hours, 17 minutes Playing: Starts Sept. 24 in general release

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Dear Evan Hansen Reviews

I’m not familiar with the source material but I have no idea how it worked on stage… I could not get behind Hansen as a character making the entire film a giant mixed bag

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

When you are force-fed exactly what to feel and witness important social issues being used as placeholders for plot repeatedly without further investigation, you can’t help but question the sincerity of this musical flick’s messages.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Dear Evan Hansen proved to be an adept adaptation of the original stage musical but ultimately disappointing in several areas...Dear Evan Hansen just proved that not all musicals should be adapted, no matter how successful they were...

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Jan 21, 2023

Dear Evan Hansen... I cannot forgive you for inflicting the worst movie musical since Cats upon us.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 12, 2022

This film is a beautifully tragic portrayal of mental health – and the importance of each life.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2022

Lively cinematography and choreography could never overcome Dear Evan Hansen's questionable narrative and wildly misplaced sentiments, or its misfire of a central portrayal, but so many of the picture's choices feel like it's writing hate mail to itself.

Full Review | Jul 8, 2022

Despite the plainness in Chbosky's direction... fans of the genre can find a genuine product that captures a time of sadness, crisis, and imposture. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 22, 2022

Just another promising project sunk by Hollywood hubris, a mediocre misfire with a few good moments that never really had the chance at being more than that, but certainly could have been so much less.

Full Review | May 19, 2022

The film reeks of a group of people so in love with the original piece of work that they couldn't even see the flaws... There may yet be a way to save this material, this simply fine film version can't do it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | May 10, 2022

The obvious solution (to the age thing) would've been to repurpose this as a iHiding Outi remake, with Platt reprising the Jon Cryer role as an adult masquerading among teenagers.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 19, 2022

Platt has a chance to showcase his soaring vocal range, but has no chemistry with his fellow performers.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 13, 2022

What we're left with is a hollow shell, a body snatcher that might resemble the show you probably paid too much to see live but nevertheless lacks its own distinctive personality.

Full Review | Mar 10, 2022

Let’s be honest, Evan’s behaviour is less-than-gallant and rather manipulative, which doesn’t help Platt’s cause.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 8, 2022

With the makeup and vacant stare, Platt looms around the screen like the villain in a slasher movie, staring unblinking as people pour out their grief. A performance that should be sympathic misfires so badly that hes given the air of a lunatic.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 3, 2022

Most of the numbers are delivered whilst sitting down or standing still with next to no visual flair. ... Like, if you took away the music and let the characters just say the lyrics as dialogue, not very much would change. Thats a bad sign.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/10 | Feb 28, 2022

"Deciphering the film's aims quickly and frustratingly becomes our only investment, and its an investment born of dismay."

Full Review | Feb 22, 2022

The film lacks the necessary energy, style, and emotional resonance to really push across its themes and ideas.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Feb 14, 2022

Dear Evan Hansen has an outdated perception of anxiety, depression, and suicide. It's shocking that this movie even got the green-light in this day and age. Dear Evan Hansen is manipulative, loathsome, and insulting.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 12, 2022

Both for fans of the play and newcomers to the story, the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen is a complete failure.

Full Review | Feb 12, 2022

It's bafflingly shallow

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 3, 2022

Review: Broadway adaptation 'Dear Evan Hansen' is a well-meaning musical misfire better left on stage

Even though it introduces a new crop of fans to its hummable soundtrack, “Dear Evan Hansen” is the perfect example of why not every hit Broadway musical should be made into a movie.

At least it’s a well-meaning misfire on the part of director Stephen Chbosky (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”). On paper, bringing back the aspects that rocketed “Evan Hansen” to “Hamilton” -esque popularity and a raft of Tony Awards – from the beloved Benj Pasek and Justin Paul songs to the OG Evan, Ben Platt – seems like a sure thing, especially tossing in Amy Adams and Julianne Moore. But the movie version (★★ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters Friday) is simply a poor adaptation, trading the vibrancy and refreshing spirit of the original show for all-too-familiar teen-movie angst, with an out of place leading man.

'See the movie': 'Dear Evan Hansen' director has no doubts about Ben Platt's casting

A high school senior with crippling social anxiety, Evan (Platt) has been assigned by his therapist to write positive letters to himself, though a printout of one accidentally falls into the hands of troubled classmate Connor (Colton Ryan). Evan worries that he’s going to post it online and make him more of a pariah, but instead, the letter is mistaken for a suicide note when Connor is found dead by his parents (Adams and Danny Pino).

The “Dear Evan Hansen” letter and the fact that Connor had signed Evan’s arm cast (how it was broken is a mystery slowly revealed in the film) leads Connor’s mom to believe that Evan was their son’s only friend. A concocted “relationship” that Evan furthers first because it seems to help the family – including Connor's sister, and Evan's crush, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) – but as the lie grows out of control, he also finds increased popularity. It all leads to a moment where Evan goes viral worldwide, only for the falsehoods to karmically fall back on him.

Ranked: All the best movies we saw at Toronto Film Festival (including 'Dear Evan Hansen')

The “Evan Hansen” movie is fairly faithful to its source material. The character of Evan’s activist classmate Alana (played by “The Hate U Give” standout Amandla Stenberg ) gets a more fleshed-out role and a new song, though it adds a bothersome disconnect to her actions later in the plot. And that rather dark conceit, of a teenage protagonist purposefully deceiving a grieving family, plays better in a musical-theater setting. For those “Evan Hansen” newcomers seeing the movie, it reads a bit more cruel and unusual, even if you can understand kids making dumb mistakes before learning from them – with show tunes involved.

And Platt can still belt those earworming, poppy songs like a champ. He’s also effective at portraying Evan’s mental health struggles: In the well-conceived opening number (which plays off the inherent surreality of a movie musical), he sings “Waving Through a Window” – Evan’s song where he yearns for peer attention – walking through a busy school completely unnoticed. Yet as the movie goes along, the slouching and awkwardly earnest Platt stands out in the wrong way. Adams and Moore, as Evan’s working single mom, are solid additions, though, and Dever’s also superb, even if Evan and Zoe’s budding relationship seems forced.

The biggest problem, though, isn't that Platt's too old for the part (though that doesn't help); it's the adaptation itself. Instead of embracing the nuance of the show, Chbosky has made an overlong young adult drama with some people randomly singing in it. The “Sincerely, Me” sequence, where Evan and his friend Jared (Nik Dodani) fashion fake emails between Evan and Connor, is the one moment that most captures the joyous nature of the Broadway musical but is so unlike the entire rest of the movie, which painfully devolves into a teen-movie slog.

Recently filmed productions of “Hamilton” and “ Come From Away ” wondrously carry over the Great White Way experience, while the recent adaptation of “ Everybody’s Talking About Jamie ” offers a dazzling take on the West End musical. “Dear Evan Hansen” frustratingly falls in between, espousing the importance of empathy and connection but in a disappointing package.

Review:  Lin-Manuel Miranda's Disney+ movie totally live up to the Broadway hype

Why Do People Hate the ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ Movie So Much?

• By David Fear

We may as well get this out of the way now: Ben Platt is 28 years old.

He was 23 when he originated the lead role of Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, after playing the anxious, socially awkward high school student in out-of-town and Off-Broadway runs. Platt would eventually win the Tony for Hansen, and the Broadway production itself would go home with nine awards, including Best Musical. It was more or less instantly canonized by the pundits , the public, and the Powers That Be (Musical Theater Division), with many people singling out Platt’s vocal range and physically taxing, open-wound performance. The praise wasn’t unanimous — even Hamilton, in its monocultural heyday, had its dissenters — but that didn’t stop its star from being the subject of fawning profiles . His last performance as Evan was on November 19th, 2017. A career as a next-gen Tommy Tune was more or less assured.

None of that guaranteed that a screen adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen starring Platt as a teenager who finds himself reluctantly caught up in a lie, and then not-so-reluctantly letting that lie metastasize for his own benefit, would duplicate the magic of his Broadway tenure. There’s a big difference between the ages of 17 and 23; but the gap between the late teens and slouching toward thirtysomething is practically a chasm. We’re not talking Stockard Channing in Grease here, but it’s close. Still, a hundred performances and a Tony is not bad in terms of proof of concept.

And yet: Although the news that Platt would reprise his role had been out there for a while, when the trailer dropped , you’d have thought he had personally gone to folks’ houses and slapped their children. He’s too damn old, they said. What the hell is up with that curly-haired wig he’s rocking, they said. (It was not a wig, Platt later confirmed.) He’s the only original cast member who was brought back, and him being here in the first place is ridiculous and it will undermine the entire project, they said. When the early reviews and tweets began to pour in after the movie’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, things went from a house fire to the Hindenberg . Opinions ranged from “a curve-crashing after-school special” to “makes the casting of AN OBVIOUSLY GROWN MAN JUST HUNCHING HIS SHOULDERS an act of sabotage.” A few days before it opens in theaters, the film holds a 44-percent “splat” rating on Rotten Tomatoes , should you take stock in such things. Dear Evan Hansen  the play was beloved. Why do people hate Dear Evan Hansen  the movie so much?

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It’s a question worth asking, especially once you see the film and realize that so much of Platt’s performance not only replicates what he did onstage, it continues to ring true to the source material. No, the close-ups do not exactly obscure the fact that Platt is not an adolescent. There are moments when the actor doesn’t seem to have received the memo that playing to the stalls and playing to the camera are two separate things. And the opening number, composers Benji Pastek and Justin Paul’s emo show-tune anthem “Waving Through a Window” — the musical’s original kickstarter, “Anybody Got a Map,” is regrettably AWOL — seems to have been edited via arrhythmic ally timed, arbitrarily screamed cues. It doesn’t initially inspire confidence in the filmmaking. It’s the opposite of a promising start.

But it’s Platt’s nervous energy, his naked lack of comfort in his own skin, those aforementioned “hunched shoulders” and his strained neck — he’s like a turtle trying to force his way out of a shell — that gets you through the first act’s rough patches and exposition dumps. The setup is the same: Evan writes himself a note of self-affirmation, which is intercepted by Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan). Evan is worried that this brooding, raging misfit will post it online; instead, he’s called to the principal’s office and informed by Connor’s mother (Amy Adams) and stepfather (Danny Pino) that the boy has taken his own life. The letter was found in the late teen’s pocket, which — along with Connor having sarcastically signed his name on Evan’s arm cast — lead the Murphys to assume the two were friends. He tries to deny it until, in a moment of profound empathy for these grieving parents, or maybe a desperate need to feel loved, or some toxic combo of both, Evan gingerly goes along with their misguided notion. If it gets Connor’s band-geek sister, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), to talk to him, all the better.

This is the moment in the story where you either find our hero sympathetic or borderline sociopathic, and where Platt’s portrayal of a stammering, emotionally needy 17-year-old becomes your ticket into the narrative or a complete deal-breaker. That’s assuming, of course, you’re willing to accept an attempt to balance everyday realism with the tenets of a Broadway musical, and with teenagers comparing pharmaceutical regimens and panic attacks in between bursting into the sorts of big songs that rattle a theater’s rafters. For those who didn’t fall in love with the play at first sight, the mere notion of a musical about teenage suicide and pop-psychology manipulation feels icky, as if the issues at hand are merely fodder for cheap despair and even cheaper uplift. When Evan and his best friend, Jared (Nik Dodani), start to gin up fake correspondence to deepen the ruse, you wonder how deep it’s heading into queasy Patricia Highsmith territory: Meet the Talented Mr. Hansen, emotional parasite.

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And then, out of the blue, “Sincerely, Me” shows up, and it’s as if the movie suddenly kicks into gear. It’s not just that the showstopping number offers a shaft of light in the darkness, or even that the imagined friendship between Evan and Connor is turned into a resetting song-and-dance routine, with Jared injecting Statler & Waldorf-style commentary into the revelry. It’s that Dear Evan Hansen remembers how screen musicals work, and that it is one. The fact that Ryan is a first-rate hoofer, and the chemistry between him and Platt fuels their syncopated routines together, helps immensely. But you can also credit director Stephen Chbosky, cinematographer Brandon Trost, editor Anne McCabe and choreographer Jamaica Craft for constructing something that gives this film a life force. You get to see these performers perform, and the wish-fulfillment aspect of Evan’s ruse becomes less of a one-dimensional black hole.

From there, the movie finds a far steadier footing, and even when some other numbers don’t hit the heights you want them to (the three-way family elegy “Requiem” never really gels), the course correction begins to work wonders. Platt’s work with the other actors feels like more of a give-and-take, especially with Dever — who’s quietly, consistently wonderful here — and Amandla Stenberg, playing the overachieving, valedictorian-or-GTFO Alana Beck; her take on one of Justin Paul’s new songs, “The Anonymous Ones,” almost makes up for the absence of a few original tunes. The casting of Julianne Moore as Evan’s mother feels odd at first, especially when you get to her one and only track, the single-parent lament “So Big/So Small,” which she doesn’t sing so much as semi-melodically sob through. By the end of the number, however, you understand exactly why the filmmakers wanted her: She breaks open the heart of the thing and breaks down viewers’ resistance in one fell swoop. As for this movie’s bona fides as musical interpretation, it’s not an outright disaster like Cats. It’s not even The Prom.

But back to Platt, and the question posed in this review’s headline. So much of the ire directed at this admittedly flawed adaptation does focus on the star in the center of its orbit, to the point where the case against Dear Evan Hansen feels remarkably personal. Maybe Evan Hansen as a character is, per a Slate article , simply a creep, and maybe Platt’s ugly-cry of a performance emphasizes these aspects in a way that’s off-putting even without the age gap. Chbosky previously directed the movie of his novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and you could argue that both he and his lead lean into this story’s perks (and pitfalls) of being a waffling liar with too much unbridled enthusiasm.

Except you’d then have to willfully ignore how fully committed Platt is to presenting this stifled young man, and the way getting something approaching a connection to other people allows him to channel a world of hurt and want and joy and grief though Hansen. I keep going back to a scene during the song “Words Fail,” in which he gets to the crescendo and the line “the worst of me!” His voice cracks, his face crumbles, and his entire body turns into the equivalent of one giant, wracked shriek. You don’t see a man pretending to be a vulnerable, closed-off boy. You see someone who knows he’s given in to temptation and whose worst fears have come true. You see Evan Hansen, all of his flaws and desires and self-loathing laid bare. And there are enough of these goosebump-inducing, epiphanic moments courtesy of the actor that you see why people might love this film as well as cringe at it. Platt does not ruin the movie. He singlehandedly gives it a voice.

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Dear Evan Hansen (2021) Movie Review – An uncomfortable but heart-wrenching movie

An uncomfortable but heart-wrenching movie that deserves a second chance.

Dear Evan Hansen is based on the award-winning musical of the same name with the show’s star, Ben Platt, returning to his role of Evan for the movie.

It might seem a little odd that Platt reprised his role as, at 27, he is a decade older than the high school student that he plays here. Still, it’s not uncommon for actors to portray characters that are a lot younger than their actual age although at the time of this movie’s release, there was a lot of criticism surrounding the casting of Platt, who many considered to be ‘too old’ for the part.

Admittedly, the actor doesn’t quite look like a teenager anymore, although it’s easy to forget his age when you start to get caught up in his performance. He still manages to pull off the innocent naivety of his character and he has the vocal talent the movie needs for some of its big musical numbers. As he already knows the character of Evan Hansen inside and out after portraying him on stage, he also has the experience to bring the luckless teenager, and all of his emotional baggage, to life on screen. As such, the fact that he was brought back as the lead isn’t actually that odd after all.

The plot revolves around a misunderstanding that spirals out of control. Evan is asked by his therapist to write letters to himself but unfortunately, one of these letters ends up in the hands of Connor Murphy, an out-of-control and unpopular student who later dies after taking his own life. Connor’s parents find the letter and assuming it was a note he had written for Evan, they visit the school and give it to him.

Evan doesn’t let on that he wrote the letter. In fact, he lets Connor’s parents believe that he was close friends with their son, as this seems to bring them a lot of peace and solace during their time of grief. Evan doesn’t only concoct the story of this apparent friendship to comfort the boy’s parents, however. He also fabricates the truth to get closer to Connor’s sister as he has a secret crush on her.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, if you have seen the musical, you will know that lots of things go wrong after people start buying into Evan’s lie. It has damaging consequences for Evan and Connor’s family and it undermines the fundraising project that Evan’s school sets up in Connor’s name. Despite the problems the lie causes, however, there is good that comes from it but to say any more would mean venturing into spoiler territory which I won’t do here.

Evan’s actions are morally reprehensible so the story is quite problematic. At times, we are supposed to feel sorry for him, even though he has used a classmate’s suicide as a means to get close to the girl he likes. Evan isn’t actually an unlikeable character though, so there are times when you still might feel sympathy for him. And the fact that he is as broken and confused as Connor was does give some context to the lies he spins, so you might be able to tolerate his plight, even if his actions can be considered outwardly deplorable.

If you can get over the sticking point that is the central premise, there is a lot to like about Dear Evan Hansen . It successfully showcases the things people will do when a close loved one dies, such as the ways in which Connor’s parents desperately try to keep their son alive by learning more about him from his peers. And the movie mostly succeeds in its exploration of mental health themes, not only in the moments when it touches upon Connor’s inner battles but when revealing more about Evan and his anxiety-induced problems too.

The songs are all very good so even if you struggle with the story, you might emotionally get swept up in these. And the performances are all stellar. We have already mentioned Platt but special credit needs to be given to Julianne Moore as his fatigued mother and to Amy Adams and Kaitlyn Dever who portray Connor’s mother and sister respectively. These aren’t the only good performances as the entire cast do justice to the characters they have been tasked with portraying so everybody deserves some commendation.

Ultimately, this is a mixed bag of a movie.  There will be some who will dismiss it because of Evan’s behaviour and I can understand that. But with its sensitive handling of such subjects as suicide, teenage isolation, and the complications of parental grief, there is still a well-thought-out story here, even if it is, on the surface, quite problematic.

If you can give Dear Evan Hansen a chance, in the same way people should have given Connor a chance before they unfairly dismissed him as a weirdo, you might appreciate this movie. Chances are, it might also resonate with you, as you may have been affected by the themes that are touched upon here.

Feel free to check out more of our movie reviews here!

• Verdict - 6.5/10 6.5/10

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How did Dear Evan Hansen go so, so wrong?

Movie-goers aren’t seeing what Broadway audiences saw

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In the weeks since the stage-to-screen musical Dear Evan Hansen premiered at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, the film has endured the exact sort of public mockery that would make its title character’s palms moist with anxiety. The instant critical piñata inspired reviews and a barrage of social-media posts in the tenor of a high-school-cafeteria pile-on, with special attention paid to the “Wait, that’s what it’s about?!” premise and the optics of 27-year-old star Ben Platt still playing the role he originated on Broadway, awkward high-schooler Evan Hansen.

As more people laid eyes on the film, it became something of a sport to see who could conjure the most creative, evocative description of this bizarre man-boy. Vulture’s Alison Willmore described “the casting of an OBVIOUSLY GROWN MAN JUST HUNCHING HIS SHOULDERS” as “an act of sabotage that’s near avant-garde,” and in a particularly lacerating Letterboxd entry , Esther Rosenfield likened Platt’s body language to that of the ratlike vampire Count Orlok from Nosferatu .

There are scores of posts echoing variations on these sentiments, raising the question of how something greenlit by Hollywood on the basis of its bankable widespread popularity could have turned into such a high-profile laughingstock. (A report from The Wrap mentions Universal higher-ups feeling “hurt and disappointed at the early response” to the film.) When a Broadway smash makes the jump to the screen , it’s because executives have decided that the property is broadly likable enough to ensnare a viewership outside the usual theatergoing crowd. Dear Evan Hansen upended that presumption in swift, brutal fashion. But the fact remains that this show, with its foundation in life-affirming uplift, means a lot to a lot of people. The dissonance between its sweeping success on stage and the intense backlash it currently faces as a film has less to do with the elements lost in translation, and more to do with what the filmmakers found.

It’s tempting to write off this disconnect as the product of a self-selecting audience, and suggest that Dear Evan Hansen benefitted from its initial audiences being the tormented 13-year-olds who could most relate to its story. (Just last year, Hamilton ’s streaming debut illustrated that when a show taps into a wider demographic, it immediately faces a wider range of critiques .) But that oversimplification about Dear Evan Hansen ’s popularity fails to account for the institutional sources of approval — the Broadway production won six Tonys, including Best Musical, and some legacy-publication critics held it up as a triumph. But other coverage complicated that narrative, with some now-vindicated writers calling out the fault lines in the musical’s emotional subtext. Its problems were present from the start, but in the story’s stage incarnation, they were readily ignored or forgiven. In its film incarnation, they’ve overtaken the release and eclipsed everything else.

The truth is, there is moral rot at the center of Dear Evan Hansen , a story about the way one boy’s suicide gives another boy a reason to live. That’s the most generous possible phrasing of the stupefying plot, in which the withdrawn Evan gets caught up in a fib about his invented friendship with his late classmate Connor (Colton Ryan). The action starts out plausibly enough, as Evan passively allows Connor’s grieving parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) to misinterpret a note found in their son’s pocket, then lets the confusion slide when he sees how happy it makes them. Before long, Evan veers into calamitous territory, as he gins up a full history of good times with Connor, inadvertently sparks a nationwide movement of mental-health awareness, and most reprehensible of all, uses his influence to strike up a tentative romance with the dead boy’s sister, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever).

Though Evan feels bad about his borderline-pathological choices, consumed by guilt and panic once his mother (Julianne Moore) starts to suss out the truth, the script barely holds it against him. After a few shots of disapproving stares, the lied-to family pretty much gets over it, and Evan ends up with Zoe anyway. The script glosses right over the fact that Evan Hansen happens to be a real creep. After laboriously displaying his vulnerable, sensitive side, the story takes the audience’s affection for granted. The lyrics, from songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, offer him comfort and redemption. “You will be found” breaks out as the show’s central mantra, like an It Gets Better campaign, retooled for depressed young heterosexuals.

For adolescents coping with isolation or alienation, it’s a potent message by design, calculated for maximum catharsis. (That goes double for junior belters; Evan exposes the sensitive soul he hides from the world during the musical numbers, able to be his best and fullest self through his tremulous vibrato.) There’s more than a whiff of manipulation to the ruthless way the show induces pathos, as if starting from the swell of tearful salvation and reverse-engineering from there. Its nearly two and a half hours of plateau rather than build, setting out to yank on viewers’ heartstrings from the self-pitying opener, “Waving Through the Window” and maintaining that grip through each successive scene. The songs, which all operate on the single setting of “soaring and anthemic,” give away the creators’ aspirations of creating non-stop feels. With the exception of an upbeat ditty that sees Evan picturing himself playing Dance Dance Revolution with Connor, every track strives for an air of the climactic. The effect is exhausting.

On stage, audiences can give melodrama more leeway. It’s a prerequisite for a medium where people express themselves by spontaneously breaking into song. The theatrical environment sells the stories-tall tear-jerking on the merit of its intimacy and immediacy, two areas where live theater has the edge on the relative sobriety of cinema. The curious case of this show’s drastic change in fortunes can be attributed in no small part to the formal transition from stage to screen, and the according shift in suspension of disbelief. Without the intoxicating energy of a live cast mere feet away, everything becomes too clear for its own good, like being at a club when the lights come on. On film, this story’s foundation of cynical button-pushing is laid bare.

That’s far from the only shortcoming accentuated in adaptation. For all its out-of-whack notions about human behavior, Broadway’s Dear Evan Hansen was submitted as a more grounded breed of musical, a look at Real Issues facing Real Kids. The film tries to stick to this basis through its lack of dancing, glitz, and the grandeur of scale associated with Broadway. (It also comes through in the music, which has more in common with buffed-to-a-shine radio pop than good ol’ showtunes.) Apart from that wildly misconceived DDR bit, the actors saunter around charmless suburban interiors in place of choreography, the anonymous town’s middle-class homes and industrial-style school devoid of personality. But Pasek and Paul still need one kid’s moody teen years to carry weighty narrative stakes, and without the theatre’s built-in exuberance, the film has to communicate the desired intensity through strange alternate means.

Platt’s technically accomplished, otherwise disastrous performance starts to make more sense as an act of compensation. His veiny, strangulated delivery while singing is the only way he can convey his inner turmoil, working against the wooden inertia of his posture and blocking. Director Stephen Chbosky ( The Perks of Being a Wallflower ) similarly struggles to create a scale sufficient to fill the silver screen. At his corniest, he illustrates that Evan has gone viral by flinging a flurry of smartphone video responses through a black vacuum until they coalesce and form an Instagram photo. As Evan searches for hints of beauty in his school’s everyday drabness — Chbosky’s aesthetic could be fairly described as “the ‘before’ part of a commercial for mood-altering medication” — the film gets stuck in the banality he’s trying to escape.

It’s possible that an impending box-office windfall will cast these aspersions as the futile objections of grumpy olds who are out of touch with the mainstream audience’s wants. That’s how things played out with Pasek and Paul’s also roundly ridiculed, still fabulously lucrative Hugh Jackman musical The Greatest Showman. Though that film’s detractors levied charges that it was a hollow story full of fake feel-goodery (which is as close as this songwriting team gets to an authorial hallmark), that didn’t stop “This Is Me” from taking on a second life as a karaoke staple.

If cinema is, as Roger Ebert claimed , a machine that generates empathy, Dear Evan Hansen is well-oiled and operating at maximum capacity. Pasek and Paul push Ebert’s famed metaphor to its breaking point, where it begins to sound more like a diss than anything else. When doing the delicate work of courting compassion, that bloodless mechanical efficiency only leaves a person feeling used-up, and just plain used.

Dear Evan Hansen is out now in theaters.

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Dear Evan Hansen review: Teen musical is sabotaged by creative mistakes

Ben platt is too old for the part, yes, but the film-makers have made the problem much worse, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Stephen Chbosky. Starring: Ben Platt, Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Nik Dodani, Colton Ryan, Danny Pino, Julianne Moore, Amy Adams. 12A, 137 minutes.

What shocked me most about Dear Evan Hansen is that, despite all the visceral repulsion squared at Ben Platt for playing the musical adaptation’s teenaged lead, the actor was only 26-years-old when filming started. You’d think, from the reaction on social media, that he’d wormed himself out of a nearby crypt in order to steal the role of a luckless high schooler caught up in a terrible lie, chirping songs penned by La La Land and The Greatest Showman ’s Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Most of the cast of Riverdale are in their mid-to-late-twenties, and it’s hardly the primary complaint anyone would have about the show. Adults have always played teenagers, long before even Stockard Channing donned her Pink Ladies jacket in Grease, aged 33.

The problem with Dear Evan Hansen , which mostly takes place in a high-school setting, with Platt as the desperately lonely Evan, is one of self-sabotage. Every creative decision feels designed to make Platt appear significantly older than he already is, like Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum were made to look in the 21 Jump Street movies. The lighting on him is unforgivably harsh, creating lines in his features where there were no lines before. His hair looks off-puttingly stiff and crunchy, while the pounds of make-up give him the pale, sweaty pallor of someone in the middle of an interrogation. And Platt performs the role of Evan – depressed and socially anxious – as an overly mannered series of tics.

He picks at his fingers, he fiddles with his shirt, he trips over his words. Whenever he’d run, his practised stiffness reminded me of a video I once saw of a raccoon stealing food from a dog’s bowl, as it galumphs away on two legs hoping no one noticed the kibble flowing out of its paws. But, in Platt’s defence, his only mistake is one of simple maladjustment. He originated the role in 2014, remained on board for three years after, and even won a Tony Award for the effort. The performance is so ingrained in him now that it probably never crossed his mind that what works when you’re trying to project youthful awkwardness to the back of an auditorium plays like a Saturday Night Live parody when the camera’s close enough to pick up every muscle contortion.

And it’s a deathblow of a mistake for Dear Evan Hansen because so much of its story relies on how much leniency you’re willing to give its central character. As written by Steven Levenson, the musical is meant to expose how crushing adolescent loneliness can be, albeit in a way that stretches credulity and normal human function. Evan is in therapy, and part of his therapy demands that he writes letters to himself as a form of self-empowerment and emotional discharge. One of these letters ends up in the hands of social pariah Connor (Colton Ryan), leading Evan to fear that all his most intimate thoughts are about to be exposed to the rest of the school.

Instead, he’s called into the principal’s office a few days later, where Connor’s parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) inform him that their son died by suicide with Evan’s letter in his possession. They’ve assumed it contains Connor’s final words, the last trace of a child they’re desperate to understand. Adams is particularly convincing as the kind of woman you just can’t say no to – and, at first, it’s understandable why Evan might go along with the delusion, just to soothe a mother’s grief. But what starts out as something fairly innocuous grows increasingly sociopathic when he starts dressing up his crush on Connor’s sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) as the bonds of mutual grief. It only gets worse from there.

Much like Platt’s performance, you can imagine such high stakes working a little better on Broadway or the West End, where there is no ceiling to dramatic strife. But director Stephen Chbosky seems to have only reluctantly accepted Dear Evan Hansen as a musical, and not a repeat of his teen drama The Perks of Being a Wallflower. There’s little choreography or visual flair to speak of. Both Adams’s role, and that of Julianne Moore, playing Evan’s mother, have been reduced to flashy A-list cameos. Dever gets to shine as a sibling dealing with the complex grief of losing someone who abused and terrorised her most of her life. Amandla Stenberg benefits from an expanded role and a new song, “The Anonymous Ones”, while playing an overachiever whose hidden struggles with depression add some complexity to the story. But when all roads lead back to Evan, and to Platt’s misstep of a performance, the film becomes one giant gamble that’s quite disastrously failed to pay off.

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