Review: Dear Evan Hansen adapts the musical to the screen effectively

4 stars

Is it better to live a happy lie or a sad truth? That's one of the questions addressed by Dear Evan Hansen, the impressive movie adaptation of the multi-award winning 2015 stage musical.

High school student Evan Hansen (played by Ben Platt, who originated the role on stage: more on this later) doesn't seem to have a choice: he's living a sad truth. He's lonely, suffers from depression and social anxiety and his single mother Heidi (Julianne Moore) is so busy working to make ends meet she doesn't have much time for him. His schoolmate Jared (Nik Dodani) will only refer to himself as "a family friend". When Evan comes to school with a broken arm, Jared won't even sign the cast.

The only person who does sign it is troubled outcast Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), "so we can both pretend we have friends", but the mood immediately changes when Connor notices the name of his sister Zoe (Evan's secret crush) in a printed-out letter.

The letter, addressed to "Dear Evan Hansen" from "Me", is part of a daily assignment Evan's therapist gave him to write about "why today will be good" (if only it were that easy). The angry Connor stalks off with it.

A few days later, it's announced Connor has killed himself. Evan is called to the principal's office where the dead boy's mother Cynthia (Amy Adams) and stepfather Larry (Danny Pino) are waiting. They found Evan's letter in Connor's pocket. In their grief, they think it's a suicide note that Connor sent to his only friend and cling to this despite Evan's faltering attempts to tell the truth. Soon, he wonders if telling the couple kind lies, inventing a non-existent friendship to comfort them, would be better.

It's a slightly clunky set-up but Evan soon discovers, as Sir Walter Scott wrote, "Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive".

At first, things seem good - he's invited to their house, where he overcomes the cynicism of his secret crush Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), whose memories of her brother are not fond, and savours the attention he doesn't get at home as he spins his yarns. He uses "Connor's" words to express his feelings for Zoe.

But he has to resort to elaborate measures such as backdated emails and as a movement at school grows to honour Connor's memory and the whole thing gains online traction, the charade might be impossible to maintain. And what will happen then?

Dear Evan Hansen covers a lot of issues - among them the positive and negative effects of social media, romanticising the memory of someone that nobody cared about when they were alive - and the story is strong enough that it could have worked without music.

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's songs tend to be on the brooding, introspective side - unsurprisingly given the material - and tend to rise and fall in similar ways, but many are appealing and they're well performed.

Director Stephen Chbloky opens up the story effectively - it unfolds in a variety of apt locations - and while some of the musical soliloquising can be momentarily offputting, if you don't hate musicals it's not hard to accept.

There have apparently been some changes made to the story (adapted by the show's writer Steven Leven) and the score (some songs were deleted and others added).

Although the story is somewhat contrived and Evan's actions are highly questionable, he remains a sympathetic character. And, of course, he's not the only one whose behaviour is dubious.

There's been a lot of debate on whether Ben Platt, now in his late 20s, should have been cast as teenager Evan. While his father Marc was co-producer of the film, the younger Platt was not chosen simply for nepotistic reasons. He won a Tony, among other awards, for the stage version. And, of course, there's a long, if not honourable, tradition of casting older actors as teenagers in Hollywood. Surrounding Platt with similarly cast older "teenagers" helps. You either accept it or you don't.

While this might not be for everyone and isn't the most profound way to deal with mental illness, it does capture some of the fragility and angst of adolescence.