Dear Evan Hansen Is An Amazing Movie But A Horrible Musical Adaptation

Picture this, it's June of 2021. I have just gotten word that a Paw Patrol movie is coming out, and as a lover of sophisticated cinema, I get hit with the cold realization that animated movies, and movies in general are dying. Modern day cinema has left near all aspects of storytelling, artistic merit, and passion for its work behind and has been corrupted by corporate greed and brand names. These days, there are no more Ratatouilles, no more Toy Story 3s. Hell, there aren't even any more Wreck It Ralphs. It's just a wasteland of corporations pushing out terrible movies for the sole purpose of making money. Movies have become known solely as entertainment, whereas the glory days were equally entertainment and art. 

I had almost lost all hope for movies. But then August came around. I had been anticipating Free Guy, (an amazing and creative movie on its own that started to restore my faith while walking out of the theatre) since early June. And it lived up to my anticipation. It's not artistically great or anything but it's a great movie that definitely brought back a sense of creativity to an otherwise uninspired year for blockbusters. 

But when I was watching Free Guy in theatres, a certain part of the experience definitely stuck out to me. That being the previews. There was a few trailers that stuck out to me that day, but not as much as Dear Evan Hansen. Right when my hopes for movies to return to their old level of storytelling and love for art, this movie suddenly appears out of seemingly nowhere. The story looks different and original, the acting looks magnificent, and the movie as a whole looks like an absolute anomaly. I was so excited for September to roll around so I could finally get to experience this movie and have my panics about the future of cinema put to rest. I had avoided all talk of the movie and trailers online so that every second of this movie could be savored as much as possible. 

It's mid September now, Dear Evan Hansen had just released in theatres, and this is the most anticipation I've felt for a non comic book movie in a long time. But, while browsing one of my favourite YouTube channels about movies I accidentally learn a horrifying fact. Dear Evan Hansen, is a god damn MUSICAL ADAPTATION! And apparently a bad one at that. 

I thought that Dear Evan Hansen was an original movie, and that was proving to me that creativity in film wasn't dead, and to learn that this is a broadway copy-paste was a bit of a blow to the heart. Instead, it's a Tony-winning broadway play starring Ben Platt and Rachael Bay Jones, who both won Tony awards for their performances. The musical is generally admired in the theatre world, and it even won the Tony for best musical in its year. So does that mean this years remake will reach the same levels of popularity with audiences and critics?

The actual second that Dear Evan Hansen was released, hate was thrown on it faster than it was on Green Book's best picture win. (Both have some valid points, but in majority it's exaggerated and unnecessary. More on that later). People keep saying this movie is insultingly terrible. 

I don't get it.

I guess I should start out being understanding with their critiques. It was a really lame choice to let Ben Platt reprise his role as the titular Evan Hansen. The director blatantly admitted the entire reason for this remake was to immortalize Ben Platt's Tony winning performance. Which is such a crappy decision. Ben Platt is a 28 year old man why are you casting him as the 17 year old Evan Hansen!? And if you're doing this just to cement Ben Platt's performance in entertainment history, why is Julianne Moore playing Heidi Hansen? You made this entire damn thing to celebrate Ben Platt's LeGeNdArY performance, why wouldn't the same notion be extended to Rachael Bay Jones, who arguably did better than Ben Platt on the original play and delivered so much more raw emotion in the play than Julianne Moore did in this movie.

Also, Heidi got so much less time in this movie than in the play and even got her song cut. All she gets is a few short scenes that begin to set up an overworked mom who can't spend enough time with her child arc, but it falls so flat because it never gets screen time to develop or flesh out enough, it is ignored to the point where it becomes an afterthought in the movie. The only other thing she gets is this annoying scene where she gets mad at Evan for hanging out with a family that can actually spend time with him while she's at work, and she just angered me so much in that scene that it ends up being negative for here character overall.

Aside from Heidi's song being cut, other changes in the soundtrack really leave a bad taste in the mouth. Cutting out Good For You was a terrible choice because that was the time in the play where Evan finally receives consequences for his sociopathic actions. And without that he just gets off way too easily.  And they changed the time at which Only Us is sung, so now rather than it being sung while Evan and Zoe are already dating, it's how they start. This would be fine normally, except they didn't change the song's lyrics, so they sing as though they are already dating, and what's supposed to be one of the most touching scenes in the movie ends up just being a hilarious mess.

Ok now on to the good stuff...

Everything Else!

Aside from the few bad things about this movie that I just listed, the rest of the criticisms I hear about this movie are just comparing it to the original musical. And I think that's really unfair. It's just like The Force Awakens in that regard, it's clearly derivative from A New Hope and it absolutely cannot touch it's greatness, but without the context of A New Hope and how it came first, you can stop comparing The Force Awakens to its clearly superior predecessor and begin to appreciate it as its own film. And once you do that with the Dear Evan Hansen remake, it gets so much better. 

Now I understand that with most people, being able to watch the movie free from the context and comparisons of its predecessors is impossible as they watched the musical when it was released, before this remake was even a concept. But I am lucky enough to have been able to watch this remake beforehand, and not make comparisons to the movie that came before it, or expecting it to live up to its predecessor. Just because a remake isn't as good as the original product its remaking, doesn't mean the remake is automatically garbage. Instead I can appreciate the movie for what it is on its own, and it is magnificent on its own. 

A huge misconception I heard people is that all of the songs don't work and are subpar. And that is truly the most incorrect take I've heard spoken about this movie. To put this simply, all of the songs slap hard. In many different ways, with one exception, (Only Us) each one is an 8 out of 10 or above. Waving Through A Window is an amazing song beautifully illustrating the life of this 17 year old in roughly 3 minutes and is a near perfect opening song, For Forever is a great emotional ballad that further illustrates the main character, Sincerely Me, while not really fitting the tone of anything that just happened, is really funny and catchy and I think it's perfect as a small breakup between the more emotionally rich scenes. If I could Tell Her is fine, definitely the weakest ballad in the movie, Only Us but still works really well in the movie and out. The Anonymous Ones is the second best written song in the entire film, the lyrics in this are insightful and just works of poetry in their own. And You Will Be Found is the second song in this movie that made me cry. The scene with him on stage singing the speech and you seeing the looks of awe and wonder wash over the audience, followed by all of the reactions online from his speech, are so perfect it almost makes you forget about the disgusting thing that Evan is doing here. 

But then there's Requiem. My favourite song I've ever heard in a musical. (Granted, I haven't watched many broadway musicals, but it definitely beats anything from Hamilton for me). Seeing the way the Murphy family is impacted by Connor's death is heartbreaking, Kaitlyn Dever's talent was on full display as she was in the car, and Danny Pino delivered my favourite performance in this movie as Larry Mora, the stepdad of the family. His small part of this song was too good for words and he would keep that elite consistency for the rest of the film. I was really concerned when he first appeared on screen that he was going to be a heartless, semi-antagonistic character but those fears were put to rest almost immediately. I definitely want to see him in more movies in the future.

Overall this movie is an 8 out of ten. I can definitely see why people dislike it but absolutely not to the degree they do. When I heard it was a musical adaptation I was terrified that my anticipated movie would turn out horrible, but to my relief, and contrary to what everyone else seems to think, it recovered and stuck the landing well. If you haven't seen the original yet, please watch this first then make your comparisons after. I guarantee it will make both a much better experience.