We can talk about how Ben Platt, who turns 28 on the day “Dear Evan Hansen” arrives in U.S. theaters, looks creepily miscast as the 17-year-old title character he brought to life on Broadway. But, really, that’s not the worst element of this misguided musical about depression, grief and the need to find meaning in the unfathomable.
The story starts with Platt’s Evan, whose social anxiety and depression have led his overworked mom, Heidi (Julianne Moore), to get him to see a therapist — who has prescribed several antidepressants, and has assigned him to write letters of encouragement to himself every day. Evan is walking into the first day of his senior year of high school with his arm in a cast, the result of a fall from a tree during his summer job.
Only one person in the class asks to sign Evan’s cast, and it’s Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), a rage-filled classmate who only signs it “so we can both pretend we have a friend.” Moments later, when Connor intercepts a printout of Evan’s latest letter to himself, Connor erupts again, thinking Evan is trying to mock Connor by including comments about Connor’s sister, Zoe (“Booksmart’s” Kaitlyn Dever) — on whom Evan has a crush. Connor takes the letter, and Evan fears it will be all over social media by the weekend.
When Evan returns to school, he meets Connor’s mom, Cynthia (Amy Adams), and stepdad, Larry (Danny Pino), who deliver the news that Connor died by suicide — and that the letter they found with his body, addressed to Evan, is Connor’s suicide note. Evan, afraid to speak up and unwilling to dash Cynthia’s last hope of connection with her deceased son, tells the lie she wants to hear: That the letter shows Connor had a friend, and wasn’t the “monster that I knew” (as Zoe sings in “Requiem”).
Like a twist in a bad sitcom script, Evan’s lie soon spirals out of control. The Murphys invite Evan to dinner, and when they pump him for details of his “friendship” with Connor, Evan obliges — even turning his broken arm into a bonding moment (in the song “”For Forever”). With help from his semi-friend Jared (Nik Dodani), Evan concocts a fake email exchange (in the curiously bouncy “Sincerely, Me”), to show the Murphys that their friendship happened.
Soon, class overachiever Alana (Amandla Stenberg) is organizing a charity project in Connor’s honor, and asking Evan to help spearhead the campaign to ensure Connor’s memory can inspire others who feel alone in the world. This leads to what’s supposed to be the musical’s emotional high point, as Platt sings the inspirational “You Will Be Found.”
There’s plenty of uplift provided by the songs, penned by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the songwriting team responsible for “La La Land” and “The Greatest Showman.” But their songs, and the script by Steven Levenson (who wrote the book for the stage version), are what’s most problematic about the movie: A tasteless attempt to turn a boy’s suicide into a farcical plot device. (This is the second time in two years — the last time was “Cats” — where I watched a movie adaptation of a much-loved, Tony-winning Broadway musical and thought, “Seriously?!?”)
Director Stephen Chbosky, who depicted painful teen awkwardness so well in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” commits another grievous error — by filming everything in a drab palette, as if what a musical like this needs is a realistic high-school setting. That said, there is one upside of this approach, and that’s eliminating the role Connor took in the stage version, as Evan’s self-induced conscience.
Also excised from the stage version are nearly every song the parents sing — from the opening number “Anybody Got a Map?,” in which Heidi and Cynthia express parallel concerns about motherhood, as well as Larry’s lament “To Break in a Glove” and Heidi’s angry “Good For You.” Adams and Pino are heard briefly during “Requiem,” and Moore makes the most out of the maternal ballad “So Big / So Small.” Still, one gets the feeling that if Chbosky & Co. could have replaced the parents’ dialogue with a muted trombone, Charlie Brown-style, they would have. Adams, tasked with a thankless role as the grieving mom stuck in denial, may have been better off.
In place of the parents’ influence, the film adds a new song, sung by Alana, who confides in Evan that she’s as alone and screwed up as he is, and her overachieving is her way of hiding that anxiety. The song, “The Anonymous Ones” (co-written by Pasek, Paul and Stenberg) is quite moving, and you’ll probably hear Stenberg sing it at next year’s Oscars.
Platt — once you get past how sallow and un-teenager-like Evan looks, and how the whole enterprise hinges on the audience liking a character whose lies put the Murphy family through hell — does give a solid performance. The problem is that it’s too much like a stage performance, with Platt still singing to the second balcony.
Dever, the movie’s shining light, is singing to the camera — to us — and that directness brings out the heartfelt pain Zoe expresses in “Requiem,” and the longing in her duet with Evan, “Only Us,” in which they imagine a romance apart from their spurious connection to Connor. (Dever has singing experience — she and her sister, Mady, comprise the singer-songwriter duo Beulahbelle. Their cover of the James Bond theme “You Only Live Twice” appeared on the “Tully” soundtrack — and, yes, I realize how random that is.)
Alas, the moments of sincerity Dever and Moore bring to bear in “Dear Evan Hansen” also throw the mawkish fakery of the rest of the movie into sharp relief. Somehow, seeing their brief shimmers of brilliance amid the manipulations makes a viewer feel sadder and angrier than a uniformly bad movie would have.
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‘Dear Evan Hansen’
★★
Opens Friday, September 24, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language and some suggestive references. Running time: 137 minutes.
