Dear fellow reader,
Today I watched the Dear Evan Hansen movie, and I’m sharing my thoughts on it.
But before I discuss the film at large, I thought I would give context about the connection between me and this show to help you understand where I’m coming from when discussing the film adaption. Even if it’s just a little bit
Back in my senior year of high school in 2018, my family and I drove down to NYC to see Dear Evan Hansen live and I was blown away by it. Part of it was because i saw it at an important time of my life in terms of graduating high school a few weeks later and I was dealing with the stress and anxieties of the future that was lying in front of me at the time, and I was able to connect to what a lot of what this show was presenting in terms of it’s music, characters, and themes at the time. To the point where I was bawling for half of the show.
But in the years since I saw the show, I have been distanced from the show and had a lot on my plate to deal with in my life to have this show played an impact on the life I have at the moment. Not to mention that the more I reflected on the show, the more I understand that it has some flaws (mainly with the manipulative main character and the mixed execution of its message). That being said, I still have a soft spot for this show mainly because of what it did to my life during an important stage in becoming an adult and I occasionally listen to some of the songs every now and then and pretend they work better without the context of the show in hand (mainly Sincerely Me, If I could tell Her, and You’ll be Found).
Now with all that out of the way, what do I think of the film adaptation you may ask? Well I’m here to report that this movie does indeed, sucks. Like it’s really bad. Like worst of the year material bad.
Now I’m going to do my best to not really compare this to the stage show, because it’s only fair judge this film as it’s own beast. I might draw some comparisons, but it will probably small and in between stuff most likely. Now we got that out of the way, let’s talk about the film itself and how it doesn’t work at all.
Even I said I wasn’t going to compare this film to the stage show in the last paragraph, I do get one of the major criticisms of the show is the plot being about a kid committing suicide and having another kid manipulated the suicidal kid’s family and lies and such is not a good plot for a musical, and yeah I can see that (if anything, it could be a good plot for a dark comedy or a film that doesn’t take it too seriously).
But at least with the musical they had the sense of life and energy with the cast and the music that you kinda excuse the problematic plot and mixed protryal of its message to a degree. Not to mention that the show at the very LEAST knowledges the problematic actions Evan committed throughout the show (and rightfully calls him out on it with the song Good for You, which I’m mad they cut that out of the film) and you can sort of see how Evan isn’t a complete psychopath at the beginning of the show but rather a socially awkward teen who gets caught up with the horrible actions he causes throughout the show. So it works fine in the show.
None of that you can say about the film’s take on this story. It’s so sloppy handled so that makes the overall message feel even worse than it already was. The film is sort of like Joker (which ironically also a film that touches on mental illness in a mixed way), in where it tries too hard to saying something important and revolutionary but gets caught up too much on its own ass that it ends up saying nothing at all. But even with Joker (despite all its problems) at least it had Joaquin Phoenix’s fantastic performance, the excellent cinematography/score, and some ambition behind it all. This however comes across very harmful, not to mention sort of mixed. Even with it’s good intentions of not being alone and being open with who you are, it’s mixed with the idea that’s it okay to be an manipulative asshole who can use suicide to gain attention for your pride.
That’s honestly not a good message to sharing to audiences, especially those struggling with mental issues like anxiety and depression. And while the stage show you can sort of excuse it because of how good the music and performers are (not to mention being one of the biggest shows deal with mental issues like anxiety and suicide), I think the film makes the more obvious of how bad this message and idea really is.
Which boils down to the execution of its writer and director, Stephen Chbosky. Now this man has brought us films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wonder. Not only is Perks of Being a Wallflower a film I would consider to be one of my favorite films of all time, but I would consider to be one of the best portrayals of mental health and social anxiety I ever seen in film and it’s a film that impacted me lot as someone dealing with anxiety and depression constantly (partly because of his autism). And Wonder is a very solid film in its own right.
But the reason why those films worked in the way they do is because they came from a place of honesty, tenderness, and raw realness that gives their stories, characters, and themes not a sense of an manipulation, but rather a sense of realness that the audience can put their shoes and relate to the situations in those films. Not to mention they were very well directed, acted, edited, and written to make them very engaging and more emotionally invested to watch.
With Evan Hansen, it’s not any of those things. The directing is very bland and not engaging, the editing is choppy unfocused to make the structure uneven, the writing is very flat that it makes the characters so one dimensional that makes so many dialogue and dramatic moments feel more manipulative than it natural like in Perks or even in Wonder, and the cinematography feels so lifeless with no flare of style or unique sense of camera movement or anything that can create any form of cinematic language.
Which is even worse when it comes to the musical scenes. Now like I mention at the beginning of the review, I like the songs in the show and they kinda work better without context of the story at hand. But the songs presented in here is not that good. Not necessarily the songs themselves (I think they do a terrible job of recreating the songs for the film), but more of the way the scenes around the songs is not good.
At least in other musicals that I don’t like The Prom or The Greatest Showman, you can tell the musical sequences (regardless of the quality of the songs themselves) are filled with life and energy thanks to the staging, editing, lighting, choreography, and performances from the actors putting their heart and soul in making the music as alive as possible.
But in here, the musical sequences comes across as lifeless and dull, and it’s due to Stephen’s uninteresting direction and bland cinematography by Brandon Torst (who did the cinematography for the cinematic masterpiece Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which is a better movie musical than this and such a waste of his talent) that I don’t think the grounded realism doesn’t really match with the musical presentation at all. Hell, there are animatics of the songs on YouTube and they are much more creative, expressive, and musically compelling than the musical sequences in this film. Just to point that out. Oh, the fact they cut out songs like Anybody Have a Map? and Good For You (two critical songs in order to make the emotional impact of the story land) really makes the story even worse from a musical standpoint.
Not to mention (yeah addressing the elephant in the room) that Ben Platt’s performance is not very good. He doesn’t really good job of capturing the rawness and tenderness of a teenager. I mean it worked fine for the stage show, but I don’t that performance translated that well into film and especially when he’s around other high schoolers in the film, he comes off as awkward, unsettling, and kinda creepy. And yeah, I agree that he was completely miss casted and I think anyone else would have taken his spot easily (even Steve Buscemi with high school clothes will be more convincing than Platt).
I guess if there any positives I should point out is that I will give the actors involved (with Kaitlyn Dever giving maybe the one truly good performance in the film) their effort in giving their performances some light in this mess of a film. And that’s about it.
Alright, I bet your probably tried from reading this review. So I will leave with this final thought.
Dear Evan Hansen is a flawed stage show that has a problematic story, an unlikable lead character, and a mixed protryal of its message, but it’s one I have a soft spot for mainly because how i saw it at an important time of my life and I can listen to some of the songs on their own every now and then thanks to the life and energy brought from the cast and crew behind it that makes the problematic story still work decently enough.
Unfortunately, I can’t really say the same for the film adaptation of it. this is a very atrocious film that doesn’t a good job of being a stand alone feature or even a proper adaptation of the stage show. Resulting with lifeless directing, empty and hallow writing, not well executed musical sequences, and making the more problematic aspects of the stage show more apparent and worse than they were before. I honestly I feel bad for the amazing talents involved with this film and making the musical worse than it already was.
I say this definitely a film you can skip entirely and you wouldn’t miss a thing. Unless if you’re a fan of the stage show who might be curious on how they will handle it into a feature film.
But here’s some alternatives to watch instead:
If you want a good adaptation of a stage musical, then go watch Chicago or In the Heights
If you want a good film about the social anxiety and the mental depression of someone in high school, then go watch Perks of Being a Wallflower
If you a good film musical in general, then go watch La La Land or Moulin Rouge (just to name a few good examples)
If you a good film with a lead character that’s dealing with the social anxieties in his life and wants to be happy with who he is, then go watch Punch Drunk Love
Hopefully this review will be in good use, and make you want to avoid this film at all costs.
Now if you excuse me, I’m going to watch more Cowboy Bebop.
Sincerely, Me
Rating: 1/10
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