But film is a different medium. Theater is immersive. Cinema is always going to change that interaction; the experience can\u2019t ever be a direct translation. With less to distract you, a show\u2019s story and themes become more centralized and scrutinized, for better or worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of this is to say, I want to give Dear Evan Hansen<\/em> the benefit of the doubt. It\u2019s possible its themes of resilience, belonging and vulnerability feel more inspirational and less forced on stage. I\u2019m sure Ben Platt made a more convincing teenager when he played one in 2016 than he does in 2021. But none of that changes the fact that Stephen Chbosky\u2019s film adaptation is an awkward, disturbing mess that makes you question the integrity of the show it\u2019s based on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Platt reprises his Broadway role as Evan Hansen, an anxious, lonely teenager with a suspiciously receding hairline. Evan starts the film with a broken arm, and writes letters to himself as a therapy assignment (we never meet his therapist, but I sure would like to). Evan prints off one of these self-motivation letters at school, but it\u2019s stolen by his bullying classmate Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), who then grabs a sharpie and scrawls his name across Evan\u2019s cast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, Evan learns Connor committed suicide, and his note was found in Connor\u2019s possession. Connor\u2019s grieving parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) assume the boys were friends. When Evan fails to correct them, the Murphys assimilate him into their family, where Evan connects with Connor\u2019s sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), his crush. The student body\u2019s reaction to Connor\u2019s death also brings Evan unexpected social cache, as their \u201cfriendship\u201d becomes the cornerstone of teen activist Alana\u2019s (Amandla Stenberg) efforts to create a memorial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plot I\u2019ve described could\u2019ve been lifted from a Michael Haneke psychodrama, one where a lonely teenager displays sociopathic tendencies after his classmate\u2019s suicide unexpectedly nets him his greatest desires. But rather than dark, probing arthouse drama, Dear Evan Hansen<\/em> is bright and inspirational. We\u2019re meant to sympathize with Evan, despite his insane behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This issue is papered over by Greatest Showman<\/em> creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul\u2019s manipulative, bombastic songs. The music\u2019s messages about being fully seen, and how we\u2019re all struggling underneath our curated exteriors, attempt to distract from the troubling realities of the story. That may work onstage, where the dazzle of live performance can cover a lot. But Chbosky\u2019s flat direction here doesn\u2019t give us anything to consider in terms of cinematography, set design or choreography. We\u2019re just left with Evan\u2019s piling lies, and an equally growing pile of people he\u2019s poised to make hurt more than they already do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost everything about Dear Evan Hansen<\/em> feels ill-advised, from Platt\u2019s casting to the movie\u2019s very existence. But it also makes plain the flaws that existed in the show to begin with, ones that somehow didn\u2019t keep it from winning a Tony for Best Musical in 2017. Dear Evan Hansen<\/em>, much like its main character, coasted for a long time on misplaced good will. The outright failure of the film version feels like it\u2019s lifting that veil, if only unintentionally. “Dear Evan Hansen” is in theaters Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new film adaptation of the Broadway smash is ill-conceived on nearly every level. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":17165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[1098],"class_list":["post-17163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22179,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17163\/revisions\/22179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/dear-evan2-1024x577.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nD<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n