Dear Evan Hansen – Film Review

This film was screened for me as part of my series for the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.

Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a young man with social anxiety disorder who so yearns to make a connection with his peers that he fabricates a relationship with a deceased student to become closer to the boy’s family. When a classmate named Connor (Colton Ryan) commits suicide, shy Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) finds himself at the center of the tragedy and turmoil. In a misguided attempt to comfort the boy’s grieving family, Evan pretends that he was actually good friends with their son. He invents a fabricated email account to “prove” their friendship, and when a fake suicide note makes its way online, Evan finds himself the unintended face of a viral video about loneliness and friendship.

My best friends who truly know me inside and out know that I am an absolute sucker for coming-of-age films and also for Broadway musical productions, despite the fact that I have never actually seen one in person. I’ve seen plenty on the internet, however, and I’ve always found myself thinking “I wish I could see one of these someday” and I don’t care which one it is. Cats? Sure, I’ll go see it just so I can say “Hey, I’ve seen something on Broadway!”. One of my favorites has to be Hamilton – the music from Lin Manuel-Miranda, the costumes, the story, everything – is great.

I’ve seen quite a few on the internet but one of the ones I have yet to see is Dear Evan Hansen, despite the fact that I basically already knew the storyline – plus I have seen photos and a couple of clips from the production before so I wasn’t completely blind while going in to see this new film adaptation. And in my personal opinion, a genuinely good Broadway-to-film adaptation shouldn’t require you to watch the musical beforehand – if it’s a great movie, then you should get a lot of enjoyment out of it even if you’re not familiar with the source material.

Dear Evan Hansen has a bit of controversy surrounding it mainly due to the storyline revolving around this young teen who essentially pretends that he was best friends with a classmate who he actually didn’t know at all, who ended up committing suicide. But instead of making that look like an acceptable thing to do, this film brilliantly and subtly shows us the dangers and seriously harmful real-world implications that this sort of scenario could bring about, resulting in a third-act that feels heart-dropping and emotionally brutal. In short, I got quite the kick out of Dear Evan Hansen – a musical comedy-drama that not only has a big heart but isn’t afraid to get serious when the script calls for it.

And in all honesty, I feel as though a lot of people – young adults especially – are going to relate to one of this movie’s characters in at least one way or another. For me, it was Evan Hansen. No, I didn’t pretend to be the best friend of a classmate who committed suicide, but I was pretty much just as awkward as he is in this story. Evan wakes up every single day and tries to write a letter for himself in order to give himself a bit of a motivational boost. “Dear Evan Hansen… today is going to be a great day,” he writes, even though he isn’t necessarily sure he believes his own writing.

He’s doing it because he thinks that maybe if he tells himself he is going to have a good day at school that he actually will, but this almost always fails to happen. When he roams the halls of his high school, he quite literally does not get noticed by anybody. When he looks around at all his fellow peers, he notices them talking to their friends or flirting with their girlfriends – just having fun. And yet here he is, all by himself, roaming the halls just trying to fit in, which I found myself doing quite a lot myself. I can relate to his shy, awkward high-school days all too well.

And when it comes to talking to crushes? Forget about it. Evan has a massive crush on a girl named Zoe Murphy (Kaitlyn Dever) but has never actually worked up the courage to go and talk to her and when they first interact, it results in Evan essentially going mute. Awkwardness is a big part of Dear Evan Hansen and it’s one of the reasons why this film feels so grounded and realistic to me.

Of course, there are understandably going to be a lot of people who want to check this movie out to see if the songs are any good, and in my opinion, they certainly are. The opening song “Waving Through A Window” is a perfect tone-setter for the rest of the movie and shows that all these years later, Platt’s vocals are still just as strong. Other standouts include “Requiem”, “If I Could Tell Her”, and my personal favorite, “You Will Be Found”, which is essentially the song from this story. Just like how The Greatest Showman had “This Is Me”, Dear Evan Hansen has “You Will Be Found” which is a fist-pumping, emotionally charged, and powerful song that seriously packs a punch.

The songs flow really well throughout this story even if sometimes, the pacing can be a little bit off and some of the dialogue choices can be seriously questionable, with some sequences feeling a little off-putting. Something that I thought would be off-putting but I actually didn’t mind at all here was Ben Platt. He was the main actor for Evan Hansen on Broadway but that was back in 2015 when he actually looked like a teenager. Now, however, he certainly looks considerably older (which is to be expected) but it didn’t take me out of the movie at all. In fact, I thought Platt did a terrific job.

But the real scene-stealer here is easily Kaitlyn Dever as Zoe Murphy who is easily one of the best actresses working in today’s generation. She has yet to be a breakout star, usually starring in smaller, indie films such as Booksmart and Beautiful Boy, but I can only hope that will change soon because, in this film, she proves yet again just how talented and ahead of her time she is. Dever is able to show such extreme emotion while making it look so easy but she also perfectly embodies the charming characteristics that this role required her to bring. Hollywood – please cast her in something major like a Marvel movie or something. She needs her big break.

Other actors such as Amy Adams and Julianne Moore also get strong supporting roles too, even if they are not the main focus of the story which is perfectly fine. This is a story about Evan Hansen after all, not the other people in his life. Acting-wise, it’s a great display of talent all across the board, and the same thing can be said about the technical aspects as well. The cinematography by Brandon Trost is super unique and unlike anything I’ve honestly seen in a coming-of-age film before.

Most coming-of-age films are brimming with vibrancy but not Dear Evan Hansen. In fact, this film kind of looks bleak, and some people are understandably not going to like that too much, but I thought it was actually super clever because this is not a happy story whatsoever – it’s seriously tragic and dark so it would only make sense for the film to look quite sad as well and it does. A lot of the editing choices were also quite powerful as well.

Dear Evan Hansen is a genuinely inspiring and beautifully heartfelt story told with great skill and fueled by catchy musical numbers. It’s not as perfect as some might’ve hoped it would be, but for the most part, the pieces fit quite well.