{"id":8988,"date":"2024-11-27T13:25:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T18:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8988"},"modified":"2024-11-27T13:25:41","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T18:25:41","slug":"dear-evan-hansen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/27\/dear-evan-hansen\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Evan Hansen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dear Evan Hansen <\/strong>(2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Musical-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 137 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language, some suggestive\/drug references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stephen Chbosky\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Steven Levenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Justin Paul and Dan Romer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Brandon Trost\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 24, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ben Platt, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amy Adams, Danny Pino, Amandla Stenberg, Colton Ryan, Nik Dodani, DeMarius Copes, Liz Kate, Zoey Luna, Isaac Powell.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $15M (US)\/$19.1M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can sit through the bloodiest, sickest horror movies without recoiling or covering my eyes. This includes the torture porn movies that were briefly popular in the 00s. I didn\u2019t even twitch at the sadistic atrocities depicted in the Hostel flicks. My tolerance only goes so far however. I do have a breaking point and the makers of Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> found it. I cringed A LOT during this terrible tone-deaf musical dealing with teen suicide, mental illness and other happy subjects. Based on a Tony-winning stage play, it is insufferable. It\u2019s shallow, emotionally manipulative, insincere and overlong. The songs are cloying and instantly forgettable. Worst of all, it has one of the most unlikable protagonists I\u2019ve ever seen in one of these teen movies. Look, I get that the guy has social anxiety, but that doesn\u2019t give him a license to be a total dick. I\u2019m sorry if I sound unsympathetic, but Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> (and Evan Hansen) really brings out the worst in me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0High school senior Evan Hansen (Platt, Pitch Perfect 1 & 2) suffers from severe social anxiety and depression. He lives with his divorced mother (Moore, Still Alice) who\u2019s rarely home because she\u2019s always picking up extra shifts at work. He doesn\u2019t associate with anybody at school other than Jared (Dodani, Escape Room), a self-described \u201cfamily friend\u201d who won\u2019t even sign Evan\u2019s cast because of what it would imply. Social outcast Connor Murphy (Ryan, Little Voice), on the other hand, gladly scrawls his name in great big letters. This way, they can both pretend they have friends. Connor is a fellow troubled teen who dresses in what classmates describe as school shooter chic. He certainly has the same unpredictable temperament.<\/p>\n

\u00a0On the advice of his therapist, Evan writes daily self-affirmation letters to himself. One day, he makes the mistake of writing it on a school computer. When he goes to retrieve it from the printer, Connor beats him to it. Not liking that Evan mentions his younger sister Zoe (Dever, Booksmart) in it, he keeps it. Fearing he will post it on social media, Evan frets for several days before being summoned to the principal\u2019s office where Connor\u2019s parents Larry (Pino, Law & Order: SVU) and Cynthia (Adams, Arrival) are waiting to speak to him. They come bearing sad news. Their son has taken his own life. They found the \u201cDear Evan Hansen\u201d letter on him and assume it\u2019s a suicide note addressed to his only friend in the world. They\u2019re glad because they didn\u2019t know Connor had any friends.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the first of many, many bad choices, Evan doesn\u2019t come right out and say he wasn\u2019t friends with Connor. In fact, they barely knew each other. He goes to dinner at their house where he spins (or rather, sings) a fabricated story about their friendship and a special day they spent with each other at an apple orchard. It snowballs from there. Evan tells lie after lie after lie. He\u2019s asked to say (sing) a few words at a school memorial service. His performance (\u201cYou Will Be Found\u201d) goes viral and starts a movement to address mental illness among teens. It sounds good until you realize that everything good that comes of the tragedy is founded on a lie. It\u2019s only a matter of time before the whole house of cards come toppling down and lands squarely on Evan\u2019s deserving head.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> is full of good intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is lined with those. It purports to address serious teen issues- i.e. suicide and mental illness- in a meaningful way, but what it actually does is exploits them for dramatic gain. There\u2019s not a single emotion in the film that isn\u2019t manipulated. Also, it\u2019s hard to root for a character like Evan Hansen. Simply put, he\u2019s an a**hole, a lying one at that. He could have set the record straight about him and Connor right away, but doesn\u2019t. He might have meant well at first, but that flies out the window when he recruits Jared to create fake e-mails between him and Connor. He then goes from liar to opportunist. He\u2019s clearly enjoying his newfound popularity with classmates who previously ignored him. He even uses the tragedy as a means of getting together with his crush Zoe. Did I mention this guy is a dick?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The 27YO Platt, who also played the role on Broadway, looks too old to be playing a teen, but I\u2019m going to let that go in favor of a bigger problem, namely his awful performance. I\u2019m not even sure if I should dignify it by calling it a performance. It\u2019s more of a collection of tics, jitters and whiny dialogue. It\u2019s actually offensive if you want to know the truth. Are we really supposed to feel for this guy when he makes a not-so-shocking revelation to his mom near the end, especially after all the crap he pulled? What he does to Connor\u2019s family is unforgivable. He takes advantage of them at their most vulnerable, playing with their emotions and not giving a single thought to the long-term damage his deception will cause. I couldn\u2019t stand this guy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nobody in Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> feels remotely like a real person. Other than Evan\u2019s mother, a proud woman who turns down a generous offer from Connor\u2019s wealthy parents to fund his college education, it\u2019s the most poorly drawn bunch of characters I\u2019ve ever seen in a musical. Take the popular girl Alana (Stenberg, The Hate U Give) who starts \u201cThe Connor Project\u201d to set up a permanent memorial in his memory. In a heart-to-heart with Evan, she reveals she suffers from the same issues he does. That\u2019s as much insight as we get into her. She\u2019s the one who ultimately (and inadvertently) gets the ball rolling on Evan\u2019s downfall. The supporting characters in Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> exist for no other purpose than acting as pawns in Evan\u2019s devious game.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As I implied in the previous paragraph, Moore delivers a good performance. The rest of them are lousy. The music is no prize either. The songs are especially grating, pure pop pabulum fit only for the playlists of preteens who don\u2019t know any better. The vocal performances reminded me of a middle school musical. They\u2019re passable, but nothing to sing about. Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> also suffers from bad writing and directing. I never felt anything real in the movie. I only felt embarrassment for the many, many bad choices made by the characters, especially Evan for whom I also felt contempt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I know Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> has loyal fans, but do not count me among them. It\u2019s the most annoying musical since Cats. It\u2019s worse than the recent musical remake of Cinderella. It\u2019s horrible. I HATED every stinking, sappy, insincere second of it. I don\u2019t have many regrets in my cinematic life, but watching Dear Evan Hansen<\/strong> just made the top of the list.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Evan Hansen (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Musical-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 137 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language, some suggestive\/drug references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stephen Chbosky\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Steven Levenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Justin Paul and Dan Romer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Brandon Trost\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 24, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ben Platt, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amy Adams, Danny Pino, Amandla Stenberg, Colton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musical","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Dear-Evan-Hansen-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8988"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9349,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988\/revisions\/9349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}