Notes

Dear Evan Hansen (Movie Review)
Dear Evan Hansen has received plenty of critical acclaim, with blurbs praising the movie for its empowering themes and emotional storytelling. It's also a testament to the songwriting prowess of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (who composed for La La Land) and the directorial acumen of Stephen Chbosky, who made Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wonder. The film has one other thing going for it: It understands how screen musicals work, and uses them effectively.

High school outcast Evan suffers from severe social anxiety and a freshly broken arm, but he's also a gifted singer and actor. He finds a way to channel his loneliness into song, a series of emo ballads that he performs for the benefit of his classmates. When a letter he's written as part of his therapy ends up in the hands of classmate Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), who later commits suicide, Evan's life begins to spiral into a web of lies.

A key problem here is that the movie suffocates you with ersatz compassion and personal growth. The script by Steven Levenson - who wrote the book for the Broadway show - and Chbosky treat Evan as a hero, even though he's essentially benefiting from a teen's death by faking a friendship with the grieving family to get closer to his crush, Zoe. That's a bit of Munchausen by proxy at best, and a clumsy manipulation at worst, but the movie never acknowledges it or exposes its absurdity.

The movie also fails to exploit its comic potential. During the course of the story, Evan agrees to dinner with a grieving family he barely knows because he panics and can't think of a way to say no. He's also a bad friend, but the movie doesn't expose the depth of his creepiness – it only presents him as the most well-meaning, innocent guy in a world of horror movies and TV shows about sociopaths.

Then there's the fact that Platt doesn't convince as Evan. ซีรี่ย์จีน tries to make him look older than he is, with unfavorable lighting and pounds of makeup. And he can't seem to shake his overly mannered series of tics, which may have something to do with his portrayal as a young man with autism and a host of mental illnesses that the film leaves undiagnosed. In a movie that relies on resonant vocals and a heartwarming story to work, these problems are fatal. Dear Evan Hansen isn't good enough.
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