I walked out of the “Dear Evan Hansen” world premiere almost two weeks ago at TIFF. I tweeted it was an “absolutely insufferable experience. It’s a CATS-level catastrophe, but instead of felines you have a bunch of overtly joyous white kids singing and dancing about mental health issues.”
I decided to go through torture again and watch the whole thing last night and, folks, I have to tell you, this movie will forever live in the cinematic infamies of hell. The screenwriting is completely vapid, Stephen Chbosky’s direction slick to the nth degree, and it clocks in at an astounding 2 hours and 17 minutes in length.
There are so many issues at play here, both morally and artistically. The main character, Evan, an introverted high-school teenager played by overgrown man-child actor Ben Platt, pathologically lies about knowing his high school crush’s deceased brother just so he can hook up with her. The truth is he actually hated her brother.
Evan doesn’t come clean with anyone. He drags this lie with him, which leads to a slew of disturbing emotional manipulations that border on cruel behaviour. Did I mention that this is a musical? Chbosky’s first two movies were more-than-decent (“The Perks of Being A Wallflower” and “Wonder”) and I even interviewed him in the fall of 2017, but he’s in over his head here.
“Dear Evan Hansen” has a 42 Metascore and is at 47% on Rotten Tomatoes. I dare you to watch it all the way through.