Dear Evan Hansen made a lot of pre-production choices that made sense on paper. Recruit the show's original star, Ben Platt, since he knows the character in and out and has a lot of on-camera acting experience. Populate the other characters with well-regarded A-listers (Julianne Moore, Amy Adams; Adams in particular has a solid musical background) and YA stars (Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg). Get the guy who made the premiere high school teen angst film of 2012, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, to direct. And lean in more to the mental illness aspect, since it's 2021 and viewers care about that stuff now.
And yet, the fact that it falls on its face hard is...not that surprising, upon further examination.
Film adaptations of stage musicals thread a tricky needle. The big one: not everyone in Hollywood is a Broadway-level vocal powerhouse, and there are occasional moments where Platt (who is) overshadows his non-Broadway costars (not a knock against them, since Dever especially acts her Zoe with grace and maturity even as Platt outsings her in their duet). The other is that on one hand, theatrical numbers demand spectacle; on the other, on-camera acting requires a more subdued approach. But unlike fellow 2021 stage-to-screen adaptation In the Heights, whose big community numbers translated to screen with summery exuberance, Evan Hansen's highly personal and intimate subject matter does not gracefully make the leap.
To be clear: it's a very faithful adaptation. Both musical and film are about a mentally ill teen, Evan Hansen, who manipulates his way into the good graces of a grieving family who just want closure, even romancing the daughter and his longtime crush Zoe (a relationship based on a lie! run, girl!!!), and using these lies to gain in-person popularity and social media clout. While watching the stage show, the heightened emotions and bombast of the staging manage to obscure the worst of this and you walk away with empathy, if not quite sympathy, for the protagonist. But in a film that writes perhaps overly emotional, but more or less realistic dialogue to connect the songs, reminds you, 100%, that these are supposed to be real people centered around a modern high school, presents them with lots of facial closeups, claustrophobic cinematography, and dour color grading? Oh god, this is horrifying, how did I ever think the musical was ok?.
To its credit, the film is aware that Evan is not very sympathetic, and adds a half-hour-long denouement where he tries to make amends. But the cringe element doesn't quite leave (since it's set to a folksy Movie Bonus Song that not even the theater audience knows and doesn't gel as much with the other songs) and the thing really just goes on too long.
There are good parts. Moore and Adams have reduced screentime (RIP "Anybody Have a Map"), but deftly play the film's contrasting weary moms with what they've been given. Moore in particular balances the "doesn't really have a powerful voice but god can they act" type of musical-to-film-adaptation-player with "So Big, So Small", but anybody wanting a vocal showcase for Amy Adams will have to wait until the Enchanted sequel.
One is left asking — is there a way to translate this subject matter gracefully to the camera? I don't know. As a stage show, it works fine, but as a film, I'm mainly just wishing they had left it as a stage show.
Film A showcase in why films and theater are separate mediums
Dear Evan Hansen made a lot of pre-production choices that made sense on paper. Recruit the show's original star, Ben Platt, since he knows the character in and out and has a lot of on-camera acting experience. Populate the other characters with well-regarded A-listers (Julianne Moore, Amy Adams; Adams in particular has a solid musical background) and YA stars (Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg). Get the guy who made the premiere high school teen angst film of 2012, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, to direct. And lean in more to the mental illness aspect, since it's 2021 and viewers care about that stuff now.
And yet, the fact that it falls on its face hard is...not that surprising, upon further examination.
Film adaptations of stage musicals thread a tricky needle. The big one: not everyone in Hollywood is a Broadway-level vocal powerhouse, and there are occasional moments where Platt (who is) overshadows his non-Broadway costars (not a knock against them, since Dever especially acts her Zoe with grace and maturity even as Platt outsings her in their duet). The other is that on one hand, theatrical numbers demand spectacle; on the other, on-camera acting requires a more subdued approach. But unlike fellow 2021 stage-to-screen adaptation In the Heights, whose big community numbers translated to screen with summery exuberance, Evan Hansen's highly personal and intimate subject matter does not gracefully make the leap.
To be clear: it's a very faithful adaptation. Both musical and film are about a mentally ill teen, Evan Hansen, who manipulates his way into the good graces of a grieving family who just want closure, even romancing the daughter and his longtime crush Zoe (a relationship based on a lie! run, girl!!!), and using these lies to gain in-person popularity and social media clout. While watching the stage show, the heightened emotions and bombast of the staging manage to obscure the worst of this and you walk away with empathy, if not quite sympathy, for the protagonist. But in a film that writes perhaps overly emotional, but more or less realistic dialogue to connect the songs, reminds you, 100%, that these are supposed to be real people centered around a modern high school, presents them with lots of facial closeups, claustrophobic cinematography, and dour color grading? Oh god, this is horrifying, how did I ever think the musical was ok?.
To its credit, the film is aware that Evan is not very sympathetic, and adds a half-hour-long denouement where he tries to make amends. But the cringe element doesn't quite leave (since it's set to a folksy Movie Bonus Song that not even the theater audience knows and doesn't gel as much with the other songs) and the thing really just goes on too long.
(And yes, Platt (born 1993) looks much too old to be romancing Dever (born 1996), which makes the visualization of this relationship even cringier. Actor age may just be a number in Hollywood, but actor *appearance* is not!)
There are good parts. Moore and Adams have reduced screentime (RIP "Anybody Have a Map"), but deftly play the film's contrasting weary moms with what they've been given. Moore in particular balances the "doesn't really have a powerful voice but god can they act" type of musical-to-film-adaptation-player with "So Big, So Small", but anybody wanting a vocal showcase for Amy Adams will have to wait until the Enchanted sequel.
One is left asking — is there a way to translate this subject matter gracefully to the camera? I don't know. As a stage show, it works fine, but as a film, I'm mainly just wishing they had left it as a stage show.