Film Review: "Dear Evan Hansen" attempts to bring theatre to the big screen with middling results
There is a special magic known to lovers of musical theatre, fervently sought out in tiny community halls, intimate piano bars and Broadway auditoriums. It’s the feeling of a communal voice, a voice pushed and pulled into every crevice of the human experience, spitting out humour, desperation, anguish, and joie de vivre.
For those long-ago sucker-punched by musical theatre’s whimsy and wow, the magic of the hit Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen will be no secret. With music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman), the six-time Tony Award-winning musical has been deservedly showered in accolades for its story, score and performances.
In the current modern renaissance of the movie musical, it was only a matter of time before this popular stage production found itself being adapted to the silver screen. With director Stephen Chbosky (Perks of Being a Wallflower) at the helm, the source material found itself in capable hands, well proven in the task of artful teenage storytelling.
Ben Platt reprises his Tony Award-winning Broadway role as Evan Hansen, a lonely, overly anxious and broken-armed high school student, unable to find his place in the world. Evan’s therapist has recommended that he writes letters of positive affirmation to himself. Instead, after an encounter with the troubled Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan) at school, Evan writes a letter to himself questioning if anybody would notice if he disappeared. In an unenviable twist of fate, Evan meets Connor again on his way to pick up his letter from the printer. Connor signs Evan’s cast in a moment of both sincerity and sarcasm before retrieving Evan’s private letter from the printer. After reading about Evan’s crush on his sister Zoe Murphy (Kaitlyn Dever), a furious Connor storms off with Evan’s letter still in hand.
When Connor dies by suicide a few days later, his distraught parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) find Evan’s letter, mistakenly believing it to be a suicide note written by Connor. The Murphys are comforted by the thought of Connor and Evan being friends, and while Evan initially corrects them, their desperate belief in a better version of Connor’s life is met head-on by Evan’s desperate need to be seen and validated, culminating in a runaway lie that pulls Evan closely into the Murphy family, to the detriment of his own strained relationship with his mum Heidi (Julianne Moore).
The success of Broadway’s Dear Evan Hansen has always relied on its ability to deliver emotionally vulnerable performances, through which the audience is able to momentarily suspend their disbelief in relation to the plot. Chbosky tries his best to capture this magic through the use of camera close-ups and live singing. However, where the stage thrives on the humanness of performers like Platt, the camera lens creates an unwanted distance between viewer and performer, distilling the performance’s tangible ferocity and firmly reminding the viewer that they are not a participant.
While the film fails to meet the lofty heights set by the success of the stage musical, it does allow for small pockets of redemption. Dever delivers an empathetic performance, giving more depth and heart to the character of Zoe; while the introduction of new song ‘The Anonymous Ones’ provides the excellent Amandla Stenberg with the opportunity to give much-needed nuance to the character of Alana Beck. Other standouts are Danny Pino as Connor’s dad Larry, and the comic relief of Nik Dodani as Evan’s only family friend and accomplice, Jared Kalwani.
The film might not have found its communal voice, but Platt’s quivering vibrato, even from the other side of the silver screen, is bound to make you feel something.
