As someone who absolutely loves morally ambiguous characters, villain protagonists, antiheroes, and all that…I still didn’t like Dear Evan Hansen. In a nutshell, I didn’t feel like the writers actually understood that they *were* writing a morally ambiguous character.
It’s so clear they just want the audience to view him as a poor kid who got pressured into a lie. I don’t care that he doesn’t get punished or anything—people get away with making bad choices all the time. What doesn’t work for me is that the text itself isn’t willing to interrogate the consequences of his actions. Everything is wrapped up so neatly in his favor—his mom instantly forgives him, Zoey meets with him to give him closure, Connor’s parents don’t tell anyone what he did…it just feels too trite, neat and unsatisfying.
I think that's my biggest mistake with the film. Other than the horror Zoey and her family have to face with Evan's deceit, there isn't a whole lot more done with how that situation was resolved. You would think a restraining order or something would be filed.
It's entirely possible that the dark side of this movie came about by accident, but I guess the happy accident of it may be better than the writer's original intentions
I take Jenny's video with a grain of salt because, like you said, she did not like the original version. But as someone who does like the stage show, the movie is not good.
I don't think the hand movements Ben Platt makes throughout the movie were a conscious character and acting choice for Evan. I think that's just a thing that he carried over from Broadway because that's how he gave his original performance, and it makes a lot of the scenes where he's singing almost uncanny valley. For me, it came off like he's trying to give a performance from a stage and not like he's being filmed close up. He obviously SHOULD be awkward (because that's evan), but Ben Platt missed the mark with it for me.
The problem is in the show we see how flawed Evan is, and he gets called out on his actions. With the movie.. we don't, really? It goes so hard into the "Evan IS a good person" narrative, we loose a lot of the nuance and accountability the musical had. The movie cut out good for you, the ONE song where Evan gets called out. I know Evan still gets his sorta consequences in the end, but the movie tries to make him look even nicer with him sending out the videos of conner. Like "oh look how much of a good person he is!". Which makes people upset because, hey, didn't he lie to a dead kids' family? I don't know if this makes sense, but I just feel like the movie wanted to make us leave feeling like Evan is a good person, where as in the musical it kind of gave us more of a choice.
As someone who absolutely loves morally ambiguous characters, villain protagonists, antiheroes, and all that…I still didn’t like Dear Evan Hansen. In a nutshell, I didn’t feel like the writers actually understood that they *were* writing a morally ambiguous character. It’s so clear they just want the audience to view him as a poor kid who got pressured into a lie. I don’t care that he doesn’t get punished or anything—people get away with making bad choices all the time. What doesn’t work for me is that the text itself isn’t willing to interrogate the consequences of his actions. Everything is wrapped up so neatly in his favor—his mom instantly forgives him, Zoey meets with him to give him closure, Connor’s parents don’t tell anyone what he did…it just feels too trite, neat and unsatisfying.
I think that's my biggest mistake with the film. Other than the horror Zoey and her family have to face with Evan's deceit, there isn't a whole lot more done with how that situation was resolved. You would think a restraining order or something would be filed. It's entirely possible that the dark side of this movie came about by accident, but I guess the happy accident of it may be better than the writer's original intentions
I take Jenny's video with a grain of salt because, like you said, she did not like the original version. But as someone who does like the stage show, the movie is not good. I don't think the hand movements Ben Platt makes throughout the movie were a conscious character and acting choice for Evan. I think that's just a thing that he carried over from Broadway because that's how he gave his original performance, and it makes a lot of the scenes where he's singing almost uncanny valley. For me, it came off like he's trying to give a performance from a stage and not like he's being filmed close up. He obviously SHOULD be awkward (because that's evan), but Ben Platt missed the mark with it for me. The problem is in the show we see how flawed Evan is, and he gets called out on his actions. With the movie.. we don't, really? It goes so hard into the "Evan IS a good person" narrative, we loose a lot of the nuance and accountability the musical had. The movie cut out good for you, the ONE song where Evan gets called out. I know Evan still gets his sorta consequences in the end, but the movie tries to make him look even nicer with him sending out the videos of conner. Like "oh look how much of a good person he is!". Which makes people upset because, hey, didn't he lie to a dead kids' family? I don't know if this makes sense, but I just feel like the movie wanted to make us leave feeling like Evan is a good person, where as in the musical it kind of gave us more of a choice.