Upbeat tunes and a heavy storyline about teen suicide make a cringey combo.
The problem with “Dear Evan Hansen” the movie is “Dear Evan Hansen” the Broadway musical, which somehow won six Tony Awards and was a commercial hit despite a problematic, manipulative, cynical and creepy storyline asking us to empathize with an admittedly troubled teenager who tells an unspeakably cruel lie and proceeds to double down on that falsehood again and again, even as he realizes he’s causing lasting emotional damage to a grieving family. Dear Evan Hansen: You’re the worst. The adaptation is a curiously strange effort, as director Stephen Chbosky (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) films the story like an indie drama, with straightforward, realistic, dialogue-driven scenes — and then every 10 minutes or so, a character breaks into song, and it seems much more contrived and jolting than something like “La La Land.” It doesn’t help that Ben Platt (reprising his Tony Award-winning role) is still playing the part as if he’s onstage and aiming for the rafters, while the supporting ensemble including Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amy Adams and Amandla Stenberg are performing in more subtle, film-friendly notes.
