TIFF 2021: Dear Evan Hansen
tiff 2021*This review contains mentions of self-harm, mental health issues, and suicide.*
Dear Evan Hansen took Broadway by storm and wormed its way into mainstream popular culture, so it’s no surprise that the musical quickly received a film adaptation, but it’s very unlikely that the film will reach the same the musical’s same height of phenomenon. Screening at the 2021 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival in an Opening Night Gala Presentation, Dear Evan Hansen is quite simply a bizarre and tonally inconsistent feature.
Much of this stems from the plot of the musical itself, which follows the titular Evan Hansen (Ben Platt reprising his role from the stageplay), a lonesome high school student with Social Anxiety Disorder. At the behest of his therapist, Evan writes a letter to himself on the first day of school in which he describes his anxieties and how he believes that things would be better in he just disappeared. For some reason, he prints this letter out and it is stolen by Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan) in a confrontation. Evan worries that Connor will share the contents of the letter and obsessively checks social media, as every passing day Connor does not show up at school. Soon Evan Hansen is told that Connor Murphy has committed suicide, and his parents believe that Connor’s last words are written in Evan’s stolen letter as he signed it “sincerely me”. Not having the heart to explain what really happened, Evan gets swept up into a series of lies, centering himself into the tragedy.
The entire story of Dear Evan Hansen is simply watching Evan dig himself further and further into a hole of falsities. Despite his anxiety, it’s still a little difficult to be fully understanding of Evan Hansen’s choices. Ben Platt played the role of Evan Hansen in the Broadway musical, and he totally embodies the character: he makes Evan’s anxiety disorder feel incredibly realistic, but due to the severe nature of his lies, the audience can’t fully get behind him. The lies continue to pile up throughout the film, and it comes with a lot of second hand embarrassment and shock with every new fabrication that comes out of Evan’s mouth. It’s also a bit weird that a 27 year old man is playing the role of a high schooler. This is due to the insistence of Platt, as well as his producer father Marc Platt and director Stephen Chboksy who claimed he could not imagine anyone but Ben Platt in the role of Evan Hansen, and while that may be true, it would have been better to have a newcomer play Evan Hansen and look like they actually belong in the twelfth grade.
The film also feels tonally inconsistent to an incredible level, again a lot of this stems from the plot of the musical itself. The redemption arc falls rather flat because of Evan’s actions, and despite the film’s length, there’s not enough time to make it believable that the other characters would forgive Evan for what he did. Dear Evan Hansen’s screenplay was written by Steven Levenson, who wrote the book that the musical Dear Evan Hansen is based on. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul who did the music and lyrics for the play seem to be absent from the film adaptation. Levenson made the decision to cut some of the more memorable songs for the movie adaptation, and the songs that do remain don’t fit very well into the film. There are long stretches without any singing, but anytime a song does come it’s usually at a particularly heavy moment – so when the singing starts, it totally destroys any emotional gravitas.
The film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen does seem to be quite faithful despite some of the song absences, and a few more characters are rounded out. Kaitlyn Dever as Connor Murphy’s sister Zoe is especially a standout, she manages to hit many of the emotional beats and her character is complex as she struggles to deal with the grief of losing her brother while also dealing with how she believes Connor to be a bad person. Amy Adams and Julianne Moore also do a wonderful job in their supporting roles as Connor’s and Evan’s mothers, respectively. Moore is absent for much of the film, as her character is a busy nurse, but she brings emotional depth to her character’s relationship with her son. Amy Adams also does well with the sadder parts of the film; her character is quite in denial of Connor’s actions, and Adams has wonderful chemistry with Platt’s Evan Hansen. Colton Ryan also has a few shining moments throughout Dear Evan Hansen, more so in the film’s more comedic sections, with one particularly great musical number.
There is a lot about Dear Evan Hansen that does work. The acting is quite brilliant from the ensemble cast, and there are a number of comedic moments that help keep the film from being a total downer. It is also a faithful adaptation of the Broadway musical, but with so many of the song absences, the songs that screenwriter Steven Levenson did decide to keep feel wildly out of place for how heavy the film is. Overall, Dear Evan Hansen is tonally messy and likely won’t meet the expectations of the musical’s fanbase.