Dear Evan Hansen

I didn’t know anything about Dear Evan Hansen before I saw the film. Not even that it was an international hit from Broadway or that the musical writers of LA LA Land and The Greatest Showman were involved.

Evan Hansen (Ben Platt who was in the original production) is a socially awkward depressive teen who is undergoing therapy who lives with his mother Heidi (Julianne Moore), a nurse who is working all hours to keep them going. Part of Evan’s therapy is to write comforting letters to himself. However he writes one that is the reverse belching out all his anxieties and frustrations. Printing it out at school class bully Connor (Colton Ryan) comes across it and threatens to publish it.

Matters dramatically change course when Connor commits suicide, the letter is found and his family Cynthia (Amy Adams) and step-father Larry (Danny Pinto) look towards Evan for some insight into their son who because of the letter believe they were best friends. This in turn takes him closer to Zoe (whom he has a crush on). She detested her brother and is initially sceptical of Evan. Evan goes along with it all and the lie is set in motion and avalanches to engulf the whole community.

This is the dark material of teenage angst as it covers almost all perceptible problems that could afflict that age group. It’s not natural musical material and while the writers succeed in getting the songs to drive the story along, other than ‘Requiem’, none are that memorable.

Directed by Stephen Chbosky with a screenplay by Steven Levenson this is well trodden territory covered in countless films before so doesn’t offer up very much in that respect. There’s of course the evil of the internet and how issues can be distorted for good and bad though here its treated as something that is just there, part and parcel of life.

Not having seen the original production it’s not possible to compare Platt’s performances. Granted he’s playing the part of teenager several years after his Broadway role however this isn’t too much of a problem as he’s good and can’t fault this singing. This is true of the entire cast especially those actors whom we wouldn’t necessarily associate with singing so Julianne Moore and Amy Adams – to these ears – are fine.

There are however several problems with this film: there is only one way this can go once the lie is established and built on, the songs aren’t up to much. But the main one is Evan; who as the films progresses develops into a quite unlikeable character as he manipulates of the tragedy and the involved, in fact everyone.

This holes the film below the waterline having such an unsympathetic character carrying the film. As such with barely a sympathetic hook or memorable songs this is a very long two and a quarter hours.