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Dear Evan Hansen

smwhorn

By smwhorn
in Movies and TV

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1978horn

1978horn 892

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Have a 14-year-old daughter who will be going to HS next year and a son who is about to turn 12. Not sure I could get either to go but seems like this would be poignant for them. Yes?

 

It’s all my 13 year old boy talked about for months. He’s really involved in the schools theater program, so that may be part of why he knows about it. We are going in December when it’s in town.

 

Sounds like there is some mature content, so we are not taking our 10 year old. My 13 yr old probably could have handled it at 10, but no way my 10 year old could now.

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smwhorn

smwhorn 482

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On November 18, 2019 at 3:26 PM, C-Man said:

Have a 14-year-old daughter who will be going to HS next year and a son who is about to turn 12. Not sure I could get either to go but seems like this would be poignant for them. Yes?

Do it.  Spend the money.  Go with them to the show.  You will regret it if you don't after you hear about others that go.

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Jive Turkey

Jive Turkey 12594

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14 hours ago, mdmost said:

December 7th is the date of our show. 

Nice.  I'm looking at tickets. You doing the 7:30 show?  

I saw it on Broadway during Ben Platt's last week.  This is a heavy show but really really good.  And visually interesting.  I like the staging.

I still listen to the cast recording.  Those songs are catchy.  Pasek and Paul are great songwriters.  They did the music for La La Land.  All they need is an Emmy to complete the EGOT.

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Borachio

Borachio 416

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I really enjoyed it.   It was a nice change of pace for me from Hamilton and Les Mis type musicals which I saw recently,  in the sense that DEH had a lot of dialogue mixed in with the music. It was a nice change of pace. 

The cast was really good and the show has a great message.  There were a lot of high schoolers at the show.   I'm going to recommend my sister take her high school aged kids if she has the chance. 

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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9125

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The movie version is here, and it’s interesting the NYT dispatched a reviewer who had NOT seen the stage production, which actually makes sense, since the film should stand on its own merits. For a too long/didn’t read synopsis, just open the spoiler and read the final sentence:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/movies/dear-evan-hansen-review.html

Spoiler

Making an ungainly leap from Broadway stage to movie screen, the musical “Dear Evan Hansen” is the story of a liar, an accomplished fabulist who uses a troubled classmate’s self-harm to gain popularity. Yet the movie (I assume in keeping with its Tony Award-winning predecessor, which I have not seen) wants us not only to sympathize with this character, but ultimately forgive him. That’s a very big ask.

It’s not simply that Ben Platt, who is about to turn 28 and reprises his stage role as Evan, is as unconvincing a high-school senior as John Travolta was in “Grease.” Gripped by crippling social anxiety, Evan is a sweaty-palmed mess, his darting eyes and coiled body language repelling other students as he sings lustily about feeling unseen. (The songs are mainly by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.) When a fellow outcast, the volatile Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), takes his own life while in possession of one of Evan’s therapeutic, self-addressed letters, Connor’s devastated mother and stepfather (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) become convinced that Evan was Connor’s best friend.

Rather than correct this simple misunderstanding, Evan begins to relish its benefits, going so far as to enlist an acquaintance (a wry Nik Dodani) to help fabricate an email exchange between Connor and himself. Welcomed into the luxurious Murphy home, he grows closer to Connor’s sister, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), on whom he has a crush. Students seek him out at school and his speech at Connor’s memorial goes viral. With each embellishment, the attention and social-media likes increase; only in the trusting eyes of Connor’s mother do we see the cruelty of Evan’s deception.

Written by Steven Levenson and awkwardly directed by Stephen Chbosky (who’s no stranger to teen drama), “Dear Evan Hansen” is a troubling work, one that constructs a devious, superficial and at times comedic plot around adolescent mental-health issues. The dialogue, interspersed with hilariously on-the-nose song lyrics, is trite; yet the story shines a useful spotlight on the internet’s traitorous turns and the way social media exploits tragedy. In one telling scene, students pose for selfies at Connor’s flower-bedecked locker, conveniently forgetting this was someone they had previously disliked and ostracized.

Even with its stretched-out running time and emotionally coercive structure (there will be weeping, no doubt), this peculiar picture has a few bright spots, including a luminous Julianne Moore as Evan’s overworked single mother. Moore might disappear for much of the movie, but her one song is so genuinely moving it only underscores the emotional artifice surrounding it. Also notable is Amandla Stenberg, playing the resident school activist and moral conscience, who brings an unforced longing to a song about anonymity that she helped write. But the film’s most squandered opportunity resides in Dever’s nuanced portrayal of Zoe, whose exhaustion over the family’s obsessive attention to Connor’s needs highlights the strain of being the sibling of a troubled child. When she admits to being afraid of Connor, the moment is brushed aside as she, too, is duped by Evan’s fairy-tale portrait of a loving brother.

Treacly and manipulative, “Dear Evan Hansen” turns villain into victim and grief into an exploitable vulnerability. It made me cringe.

 

 

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gsoda3

gsoda3 3254

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my wife's been raving about DEH for a few years.  i've always thought the premise was incredibly creepy and that the main character was an awful person.  i can't remember how it ends so maybe there's something redeeming about EH but i imagine that's how most of the general public are going to view it too.

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mdmost

mdmost 43001

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I liked Dear Evan Hansen when I saw it but something about it always sat wrong with me. Perhaps how Connor is used as a tool by Evan even down to a song Connor sings to Evan about keeping his memory alive which is an Evan manifestation to navigate his own insignificance before he kept the lie going. A show that should've been about the loneliness and isolation some feel in our society got perverted along the way. It never got to the heart of why Connor ever felt the way he did. He's just swept aside. It didn't hit for me like it did for others, I guess. 

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