You should’ve included a sin for the movie dropping Good For You. A song that actually calls Evan out on his bullshit and Heidi rightfully lashing out at him for throwing under the bus in favor of the Murphys
@@WobblesandBean The singing might be in his head, but the stage version also has real dialogue from the actual characters calling Evan out for being a selfish dick. That’s one of the things that boggles my mind about this movie - even if the song would somehow not translate well, they at least should’ve kept everyone getting REALLY pissed off at Evan and tearing him a new one
If Dear Evan Hansen weren’t a musical, it would be an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Pretending to be besties with your crush’s dead brother to get into her pants is such a Dennis move.
Replace dead brother with dead grandfather and they did do it on sunny. they find an old man who died in the bar booth and arrange a funeral because both dennis and mac wanted to nail his granddaughter.
I want it written on my headstone that everything Dear Evan Hansen does, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does better. Mental health issues, willingness to engage with its main character’s gray morality, musical numbers that embrace stylization and ambiguity, and giving attention to all its characters in a way that makes them feel fully developed. Granted, it might not be fair to the compare a 4 season TV series to a single movie/musical, but even a single CXG episode can still stand on its feet better than DEH.
Didn't Patti Lupone say once that Rachel Bloom and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was one of the few instances of someone knowing how to do filmed musicals *right*? She's definitely someone I would definitely defer to when it comes to having an eye for doing musicals well... for no other reason than I would fear for my well-being if I were to disagree with her.
You know, this musical would be exponentially better if initially we, as the audience, didn't know Evan wasn't friends with Connor to begin with, and started piecing it together little by little as the musical progresses. It could have painted a great psychological portrait.
Agreed, it might have been more interesting had it been told from Zoe's perspective, and we'd have more insight to how her and her parents are struggling with mourning Connor, and their conflicting feelings over his death.
I totally agree with you, but that would have required writing that is not keeping in tune with today's idiotic writing. Storytellers nowadays think that it audiences cannot handle any suspense. Can't figure anything out for themselves and everything is spoon fed us right from the get-go?
I heard an idea kinda similar to this suggested by Schaffrillas, only instead it’s revealed that Evan actually killed Connor and slowly kills everyone who finds out over the course of the story, making it a horror story as well.
There was one idea that I really enjoyed, if the play the focused on Connor's ghost who is experiencing the play, and is unable to interact or fix any of his mistakes, so he knows how badly he hurt others and how much they cared. How his mother feels like a failure, how his father feels betrayed, how his sister basically hates him, and worst of all there is some jerk who is pretending to have known you and is grifting your family and others for his own gain. Personally my main problem with the original is Even gets off way too easily and I think isn't called out enough in the original outside of 1 song
It still baffles me that they still got Ben Platt to play a teenager. Watching him in the high school reminds me of Will Ferrel in Elf against all the elves in the north pole
@Eamonn Deane He could have been a teacher at Connor's memorial who introduces Evan before You Will Be Found. It wouldn’t have been obtrusive, he could have had a nice moment, and maybe ended with something like, "I'll now pass the mic to a very special young man, Evan Hansen."
That definitely could have been the saving grace of this disaster. It might not have been a very big saving grace but it would have made things a bit less infuriating and be nice to see some negative consequences happen to Evan besides people being upset with him when they learn the truth. Evan needed to suffer a bit for his wrongdoing instead of “Oh I don’t want to date you now that I know you used my own brother’s death to try to get into my pants” or “I can’t go to college unless you let me accept the money the Murphy’s offered us!”
One of the few good songs AND THEY CUT IT. There are MANY sins in this movie but I'm with you, it's one of the biggest for me. Especially since it gave his mother a moment to shine, one of the few she really had and she lost it
The stage version is definitely flawed, but it does a much better job of acknowledging the questionable morality of Evan's actions. Mostly done in the songs that, for whatever reason, they cut from the film. "Does Anybody Have a Map", the original opening number, gives a clearer picture of Evan's relationship with his mother and offers her perspective. It also gives us more time with the real Connor and how his family feels about him. The other song I'm baffled they cut is "Good For You", which is a banger that really calls Evan out from the perspectives of Heidi, Alana, and Jared (who, sidenote, gets a lot more time on stage and writes a lot more emails than are shown in the film). Not saying that putting these songs in the film would have fixed its issues, but it would have helped at least. That and casting someone younger as the title character.
I highly concur. It would have been far better had they kept "Good for You", since it shows how Evan's actions negatively impact the people around him. Instead, it's like he got off relatively Scott free.
Yeah, it's crazy to me that they cut Good For You! And I'm firmly in the camp of giving Evan grace for the mistakes he made- in the stage show at least, I very much sympathize with him and don't have any problem at all with the ending not punishing him even more just to appease the people who think that would be the only way for him to "face consequences". So I end up defending Evan as a character a lot, but even so, Good For You is an incredibly important song that allows us to reckon with just how far he's fallen into this lie and the negative impact that it's having on those around him. Taking it out isn't going to make the audience more sympathetic, it's just going to make the whole situation feel even ickier if there's little acknowledgment of how wrong it is! The stage show, imo, creates a really good and powerful balance of acknowledging how wrong Evan's choices are while still allowing us to empathize with why he makes them, and from everything I've heard about the movie, the degree to which it sounds like they needlessly undid that balance, while still not doing anything to strengthen the aspects of the stage show that *were* weaker, is baffling to me.
I can’t even take this movie seriously as some of the songs just make me laugh at how pathetically bad the movie tries to be dramatic and enjoyable. It just seems to be over the top in a really bad way that you can’t help but laugh at its epic failure.
Yeah, while cutting Breaking in a Glove was a good move, the other cuts don't make any sense, those are two of the best songs and also break up the constant ballads.
As mentally ill teen who loves musicals, DEH never really grabbed my attention. I saw it’s premise as boring at best and uncomfortable at worse, but the song were sort of nice. When the movie came on demand, I brought my family along for a hate watch, expecting to at least enjoy the badness. We couldn’t make it halfway through the movie because I was crying too hard. This movie’s portrayal of mental illness was so bad, it triggered my own suicidal thoughts. This movie showers Evan in so much praise for being an non-intrusive, passive ill teen while he’s still lying to a whole family about their dead son that it makes me nauseous. I’m not kidding, this movie made me hate myself. I know that not everyone had such a strong reaction to the movie, but I hate how this movie caused me self loathing because I wasn’t as good as Evan.
"This movie’s portrayal of mental illness was so bad, it triggered my own suicidal thoughts." OH NO!! I hope you are okay now. Granted, there were others who disliked the musical's premise like you, but the fandom drowned out these voices. Because they saw the play as something that helped mental issues finally be seen.
I am better now, thanks for asking! And as for the other people who identified with the musical, I can completely understand that. Representation doesn’t have to be prefect to work, but the way DEH does it specifically was really bad for me. But if it really helped others, then more power to them!
Oh the irony of a movie supposedly about portraying mental health and suicide awareness triggering a mental health incident. I get it. I was triggered a bit by 13 Reasons Why but at least that show was interesting and had a more believable cast of characters that react in realistic ways to the tragic events that they all encounter together.
I remember listening to the ost of the musical and I legit thought the musical was meant to be a Heather or Beetlejuice type story of a kid who gets haunted by the ghost of his fellow dead classmate and must help him move on by reuniting his family. That's how out of context the songs feel
You hit the nail on the head with the sound of the music not matching the story. Even if the writing isn’t trying to frame Evan as an inspirational sympathetic hero, the music definitely leans into that without restraint.
I feel like, for the stage show at least, the music works for me because it feels like an organic extension of the connection Evan is longing for and eventually finding. Basically, some of the songs in context *are* kind of at odds with how they sound on the surface, but I think that can work as long as the audience can organically empathize with Evan and sympathize with what he's singing as the things he's needed to hear for a really long time. But from everything I've heard about the movie, it sounds like the huge problem is that that empathy with Evan is never really properly established. So when you have these songs that sound inspirational but are based in lies, it just ends up having more of a sinister vibe than one where we can feel relief that this deeply lonely person is finally feeling connected with the world, even it's a really messed up situation he fell into and ended up perpetuating that allowed him to feel that way. I feel like I'm not explaining it well haha, but yeah... I just can see how the degree to which the music and its function in the story would be *really* dependent on how well Evan as a character lands! And in the show, he absolutely landed for me, but everything I've seen of the movie is just... bafflingly bad.
That’s because the music is knocked off of 80s power ballads and Amy Grant tunes. (I can’t listen to “waving through a window” without “don’t stop believing” running through my head…it’s “fun” interchanging the lyrics to both intermittently)
Ok, but who said people are supposed to look beautiful and cinematic when they cry bitterly? It's deep pain and anguish that he's expressing, and Diva is commenting on how he doesn't look so pretty? Yep, that's a hellish take for once.
@@bigbearkat2010 No, she actually came back to the same issue again toward the end of the video and suggested that BP looked like he drank from "the false grail."
@@KingoftheJuice18 Afaik the false grail doesn't make you ugly, it makes you grow old very fast. Like, the holy grail gives you eternal life or youth or whatever and the false one does the opposite. The only thing this has to do with beauty is the prejudice that old equals ugly, but Diva never alluded to anything apart from him looking too old for the role and I've never seen that prejudice expressed on this channel.
I was not in fact saying that people should look pretty when they cry. I was saying that making the Grinch face when the character is supposed to be expressing deep pain and anguish is a questionable acting decision.
I think the only reason this musical got so popular is because the songs - when taken out of their original context - are pretty good. I'll never forget how when the trailer first came out, people where surprised about the actual plot because they had only ever seen the animatics on CZcams or fanart I also always thought that any of the Murphys would've been a better central character and then remembered Next To Normal already exists lol
I heard lots of people made animatics of their favorite shows with the songs. The best chance for these songs to live on now is being used in an alternate movie. Like how Holding Out for a Hero was used in Shrek 2, which helps gain popularity it didn't quite get from its original musical, Footloose.
@@WobblesandBean Funny you should say that! Amy Grant just put out a cover of 'You Will Be Found' without changing any of the lyrics and the Christian Radio Station K-Love has been playing it! First time I heard it on there I said out loud, "That's from Dear Evan Hansen!"
Jenny Nicholson's breakdown of this introduced me to the play as a whole. I still watch her review every now and then for a laugh. "Mommy, why is the scary man screaming?"
I disagree. While the movie has a ton of issues, her criticisms of the stage show were way off base, and it really felt like she just didn't get it. Why does she criticize that the show and Broadway in general is "10 years out of date" for having a teenage boy use a homophobic insult? Having a character say something inappropriate means the writers approve of it? Such a dumb complaint, that's how many teenagers are. Additionally, all her talk about some apparent metaphor she thinks the movie has about Evan being a tree didn't work for her. There is no such metaphor, waving through a window doesn't refer to branches blowing in the wind. That was really bizarre.
@@warnegoodman In reverse order: The entire "tree" metaphor was a joke because there is no actual thematic significance, good job missing the point so hard you wrapped around and remade the point again. The homophobia in the stage show isn't meant to represent how teenage boys actually talk, it's repeated and deliberately intended as a joke _for the audience_ to laugh at the idea of a gay relationship, and also could've been eliminated with no change in story or general quality, so good job failing at that analysis as well.
@@warnegoodman The homophobic dialogue wasn’t just dialogue. It was written to be humorous and make the audience laugh, which *is* very dated humor. And saying that there isn’t any symbolism is admitting that the story isn’t as well-written as it should be. Because she also explained in that point several ways a tree metaphor *could* have been woven into the story, but the writers didn’t do any of them. For example, one potential message she said they could have given using the metaphor was that Evan needs a support system. There could have been focus on how the trees in the orchard need strong roots and a stable foundation to grow, and as a parallel, Evan and the other characters could learn that he needs a support system. Instead, Evan doesn’t really learn any clear important advice on how to deal with his anxiety, and the trees don’t have any clear symbolism despite Evan liking them so much and being so prominent in the story.
My favorite part of her video is just any time she refuses to take the orchard kickstarter seriously. After hearing her point out the flaws of it, I couldn’t take it seriously in the play or the movie either. There were a few points in her video I disagree with, but overall it was very entertaining and I go back to watch it too.
I wish that they'd had Colton Ryan appear more as Connor, since he's mostly absent from the film until near the end. The stage version used the character better, since an imaginary version of Connor would appear to Evan, acting as his conscience in certain moments, which you can't do as effectively in film.
You could if you used horror-esque movie tactics, like having Conner separate from the rest of the group, Evan being the only one who sees him, and the arguments happening when no one else is around. Think a dramatic version of the narrators from the film version of Little Shop Of Horrors
I actually argue that the film could do it more effectively since they’re aided by CGI and camera placement. You can have him in scenes, looking at Evan like a horror movie villain nobody else can see when Evan’s feeling guilty. You could have him being the playful helpful conscience when you want him to by having him pop seemingly out of nowhere or in weird places (laying across busy tables, sitting on top of teachers’ desks, etc) with nobody paying it any mind. Basically a less horrific Sixth Sense with Connor as Bruce Willis.
They could have gone the second season of 13 Reasons Why route and have Conner appear before Evan as some sort of spirit that occasionally pops in when Evan feels guilty about his deception and they have conversations similar to Hannah and Clay. Conner keeps telling Evan that what he is doing is wrong but Evan insists that this is the only way for people to like him.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: as someone diagnosed with anxiety, whose favorite Disney Renaissance movie is Aladdin, whose favorite Walt-era Disney movie is Snow White, who was seriously rooting for Moana to win Best Original Song, and who really hates P.T. Barnum...I sometimes wonder if Pasek and Paul are out to personally victimize me.
Ben’s performance in the stage version was brilliant and honestly, did deserve that Best Actor win. But for the film, Andrew Barth Feldman was right there.
I agree, it should have gone to Andrew or Joshua, someone either in their teens who'd had prior experience in the role, or someone more youthful looking to convince as a teenager.
I'll say this about Stephen Chbosky's direction in this movie: At least he got Ben Platt to stop closing his eyes every ten seconds. (Seriously watch any performance footage of 'Waiting Through a Window" and take a shot every time he closes his eyes.)
Platt cited Grease as why it wouldn't look weird for him to play a 17 year old at age 27. Aside from the fact Grease was over 40 years ago, no one would say that Grease was going for a realistic depiction of high school or teenage life. There's a certain amount of suspension of disbelief we allow because we see it as a fantasy of high school life rather than a reality. Dear Evan Hansen is going for a more realistic depiction so we don't give it that same suspension of disbelief.
If this story was told from the Murphy's perspective, Evan would be a manipulative stalker invading their lives _Hand That Rocks The Cradle_ style. And yeah, that probably _would_ be a way better movie.
I honestly wonder how this kind of premise got greenlit in the first place. It's a unique premise for sure...but the execution is a big turn off for a lot of people.
How he got away with gaslighting Connor’s sister so hard… “your brother may have been threatening you and making you fearful for your safety in life but hey! Here are some emails that probe he really liked you…almost as much as I do”. Nope. Not creepy or morally repugnant at all.
I’m just disgusted how Evan is using their son and brother’s suicide as a means to become more popular and to hit on Conner’s sister. And I have become rather clingy to people in the past. Doing that is just wrong and if Evan was real and I had just met him and learned he was doing this, I would immediately punch him in the gut and then go in for a groin kick because it’s what he deserves for being such a manipulative creep who is using someone’s suicide as a way to get into their sister’s pants. Evan is lucky that none of the Murphy’s grabbed the closest blunt object and just whack him hard in the face with it when they learned the truth.
I have social awkwardness because of my Asperger’s diagnosis and often have trouble talking to people sometimes to the point I get some anxiety and even I think the plot of Evan faking a friendship with a dead kid just to be popular is disgusting and I’m the type of person that people would describe as being clingy.
My partner and I are both on the spectrum and we HATE this musical and especially Evan, and don't care for the interpretation that Evan is autistic. It's partly because he feels like what an allistic person thinks an autistic one is, and partly because one of the ways my autism informs my personality (and same with my partner) is that I hate lying. I can lie if feel like I need to, but it makes me uncomfortable and I want to be as honest and straight forward as possible and would never in a million years go to such lengths as to fabric a friendship with a dead kid to get in with their grieving family.
I can't believe that they underutilised Amy Adams. I wish that they'd kept "Anybody Have a Map?", to give her more opportunities to sing, and to introduce us to the Murphy Family and their issues
This and "Requiem" are the only DEH songs that I think are legit good. I find Pasek and Paul really overrated, but Spirited is the one score they finally got right.
13:16 I think that’s why the music always felt wrong to me. The songs feel less like there were meant to help tell the story, and more to be taken out of context and used for AMVs or have it’s lyrics posted as Tumblr images. Seriously, I’ve heard songs from this as part of AMVs and rewritten for parody musicals and they fit so much better there than they do in there own musicals.
"For Forever" especially. I really like it, but it's so vague outside of its context that I could make a sad AMV, pretend it's where the song came from, and probably effectively gaslight someone into that being the truth.
I remember Jenny Nicholson said something similar in her review of The Greatest Showman, where she said that the songs felt more like they were designed for radio air time rather than helping to tell the movie’s story. She did a test to see how many of the songs could stand on their own, divorced from the context that they were from a musical, and all but two of them could, which isn’t great 😕
THIS. I like the songs so much out of context-they work so well to picture various blorbos and/or OCs to, but they just don’t work with their own source material
The late great Robin Williams did this premise so much better in his film, World's Greatest Dad. Unlike Evan's character, Robin's character has to deal with the fallout of his misdeed, and has to take real responsibility for his actions.
It’s pretty sad that the CZcams animatics I’ve seen for the songs are more visually interesting than the the movie’s cinematography. What I'm saying is that this should've been animated.
Every time Evan lashed out to his mom over things she couldn't help (while working her ass off to pay his meds/thrrepy/college) I wanted to rip his face off with my nails. I love how the show could be a horror thriller for the Murphys' pespective. I complete stranger lies about being best friends, with their dead son, almost worming his way to Connor's place while dating their daughter and starts self pitying blubbering once the truth comes up. I'd be pretty terrified (Amy Adams especially looks like she's back on Sharp Objects during that scene)
Yuuuuuup. I'm earnestly angry that there's ANYONE out there who defends Evan's actions. He's 17 in the story, isn't he? He's WAY old enough to know better. But they play him like he's a freshman, with how childish he acts.
Evan using a dead kid’s death to make himself popular and to make people like him disgusted me and I’m the type of person who has freaked out before because someone I had met on an online dating site suddenly stopped talking to me for a day and I automatically think that they hated me and something is inherently wrong with me for people to keep abandoning me and so I send dozens of messages to see if they still liked me. You know you’ve done something horribly wrong when a person that can be described as needy and clingy is disgusted by your actions.
Hi, Diva. I don't know if you remember me at all, but a long time ago I sent an ask on Tumblr where I was super doubtful of myself and worried that I was a heartless person because I didn't like this show--- for many of the same reasons you eloquently listed here. Your words of advice and reassurance gave me the courage I needed to stand by my opinion and find those in the musical theatre community open to having critical discussions on how the show handles its themes. In many ways, coming back to your channel to finally see your video on DEH feels almost like coming home. Your videos have been a huge part of adolescence and while it'll be sad to see you retire, I'm glad to have had the privilege to be encouraged by you to hold onto my beliefs.
You should not feel heartless for not liking the show, it's a divisive story with a very bad main character. I'm still shocked this got as popular as it did once I read a synopsis.
I think that there are some musicals that are well liked and extremely popular that a minority of musical lovers actually disliked the show themselves. I have no real interest in Hamilton because rap and hip hop is one genre that I never listen to and it isn’t the type of music for me. I can respect it as a work of art and how it has made a Founding Father’s life much more interesting that people actually are interested in that part of history now. I’m just not going to go out of my way to see it performed live on stage. I’m also not a huge fan of Peter Pan and that’s okay. Everyone should be entitled to like or dislike different musicals because of personal taste and opinions.
I just want to tell you- if you don't like a show, that doesn't have anything to do with your personal character my friend. You are allowed to like or dislike media, and that has nothing to do with who you are as a person 💜 you can always keep your opinions like that to yourself, but I hope that if you want to, you will at some point feel more comfortable sharing your thoughts about media with other people bc your opinions are valid and valuable, because you yourself are
They tried to shoehorn a "mental health message" into the plot by the cost of cutting important points like the Connor ghost tempted Evan into using his memory to gain advance over the murphy for his own behalf. Actually they cut everything who could paint Evan into a bad light, daddy loved his child star so much that couldnt let him be anything except a flawless snowflake i guess
I think if it wasn't for the fact he's a nepo-baby that got the job due to his Dad's involvement, Ben Platt's casting may have not been such an issue, but a problem nonetheless. And credit to him, even with a successful Dad, Ben Platt's vocal abilities cannot go ignored
I don't know, I find that weird "emo yodel" he does at the end of every other line extremely off-putting. '80s-cookie-cutter-country-pop-ish vocal mannerisms like that annoy me to no end. All the quieter vocals sound like they stuffed the singers into a full wardrobe with a dictaphone to record them, too.
@@gracekim25 Nepo-baby. That means someone who gets the best acting or singing jobs because their parents were also actors or singers. They may or may not have actual talent, but they got their start because Mommy and Daddy pulled strings.
What annoys me is that Evan could actually be a more sympathetic if they actually made his actions more intentional. The movie (and the play too I think) uses Evan's mental illness as an explanation for his actions but doesn't explore how he justifies his actions to himself. And his suicide attempt is used more as a "but look Evan is sad too" gotcha even though it creates a parallel between him and Connor that could be explored. If you think about it Evan has multiple reasons to resent Connor 1. Evan blames his issues on his father leaving and his mother working. Connor on the other hand lives Evan's dream life yet still commits suicide. This could make Evan think that Connor was the problem, his issues weren't that severe and Evan deserves his life more. 2. Connor dies and everyone is suddenly saying good things about him, while Evan's suicide attempt didn't improve his life at all. This could make Evan think that Connor was actually the lucky one for dying. This would again not make him feel sympathy for Connor 3. Connor was mean to Zoe, making Evan think that he could be a kind of saviour to her. This way Evan's callousness towards Connor's death would stem from his own suicidal ideation and make him look a lot more sympathetic.
As a former 19-year-old ardent defender of the show that is currently a 25-year-old lukewarm defender of the show, I think your part about the musical dissonance is representative of a larger problem with the show: the story that Pasek, Paul, and Levenson wanted to tell is vastly different from the story they actually told. I blame this partly on the choice to market the show to a younger crowd (it's the same reason 13 Reasons Why is flat out dangerous and despised while Euphoria is a challenging critical darling), but the missteps were there before the show opened. The writers talked about how the show was a lot more sardonic and mean-spirited in it's earlier iterations. "You Will Be Found" in particular was originally a condemnation of performative grief and slacktivism, but the final version of the show is exactly what it was trying to satirize. One thing I think the show does well is how it depicts the internet. By painting with broader strokes than most shows, they captured really well how digital anonymity affects the way we process empathy, the way we have to relearn how to interface with people in the real world, and the way attention and connection seems easier to attain but is harder than ever. More importantly, it does it in a way that's a lot less likely to age poorly. It gives me hope that once the show comes out for amateur and regional licensing (which should be soon, now that the Broadway production is closed and the tour is winding down), other directors and artists can find ways of presenting the show that solve some of these dissonances. There's a conversation over whether the show’s flaws can be solved through directorial reinterpretation or if it's fundamentally broken, but I look forward to seeing other theaters do DEH and finding out for ourselves.
Watching this reminds me of the Sandra Bullock romcom "While you were Sleeping" where Sandra Bullock plays a lonely train worker who saves a man's life and pretends to be his Fiancee so she can visit/stay with him at the hospital. The lie ends up taking on a life of its own and hijinks ensues. It's a movie with a somewhat similar premise of a lonely person finding a family but does it like 1000x better. We actually like Sandra and understand why she's doing what she's doing even though it's not ethical. (And yes I'm sure the character is not named Sandra Bullock I just don't feel like looking it up)
Exactly. Sandra’s character has a reason to keep up the charade because she is completely alone and she saved the man’s life which led to a misunderstanding with his family and she originally just wanted to make sure he was okay. Evan lied as a means to get into the pants of a dead kid’s younger sister which is a really horrible thing to do no matter what. Sandra was just doing it to have a sense of family and not to jump the bones of the guy she had saved.
I'm kind of surprised there wasn't a sin regarding the fact that they left out 'Good For You,' the song where Heidi, Alana and Jared call him out for basically abandoning them. There was absolutely no reason, plot-wise, that such an important moment in Evan's arc where he starts to see how his behavior is affecting the one closest to him should've been left out, and excluding it emphasizes the writers' attempts to make Evan seem like a victim and not nearly as guilty as Connor's neglectful parents!
Evan basically got away with being a horrible person throughout the movie. I mean he used the death of a classmate for his own gain to become popular and to get into the pants of the dead kid’s sister. Even I find that disgusting and people have called me clingy and needy because I have abandonment issues and sometimes think that I must do whatever people want me to do to get them to like me.
I have so many issues with this musical, and originally, out of spite, I started looking up fanfic where Connor lives and gets together with Evan. I shouldn't have been surprised to find that the best versions of this thing exist in the fans minds. Connor/Evan OTP
Dear Evan Hansen is reprehensible for a lot of reasons, but not visiting your therapist and still paying for appointments with your mother's money is beyond the pale. Australia's Medicare isn't perfect, but you only have a limited amount of sessions with your therapist per year. What a waste of quality mental health growth!
I feel like the scale of disaster from this movie should not go understated. It's disastrous results bled into the original stage show, resulting in it suffering on tickets, and closing on both Broadway and the Westend. Meanwhile Come From Away lasted months longer in both areas and is going on tour in the UK. So even without the Tony's, it's easy to say which musical got the last laugh
YES! I am still so bitter about how robbed The Great Comet was. The score was so unique and brilliant and I would argue that it handled topics like depression and suicidal thoughts with more nuance.
I was a large fan of DEH whenever it came out. (But I was a bigger fan of CFA and was mad it got practically nothing at the Tonys.) I was struggling with undiagnosed social anxiety at the time, eventually getting diagnosed the year after DEH made it to broadway. "Waving Through a Window" was a song that resonated with me because I felt like not a lot of media, specifically music, tackled social anxiety and tackled it well. It tackles the isolation, but the fear of being perceived. And I do think that it is one of the strongest songs in the show. Anyway, I, eventually, stopped listening to the music because I was getting bored of it. I didn't return to it until around the time this movie came out. I like the first part of the movie, but I think it keeps getting worse the further into the plot it goes. I think the movie just brings out the issues with the musical a lot more than was present in the musical. As the stage and film do have different strengths and weaknesses. I also do think that removing "Anybody Have a Map?" takes away from the character introductions and the introductions to their character dynamics. Same with "Good for You".
A musical focused on the Murphys is a great idea! Focus on a mother in denial about the death of her son, a father unable to help, a daughter feeling like her trauma is being neglected...oh wait, that's Next to Normal.
This movie becomes a lot more upsetting but also kind of darkly funny if you imagine that Evan actually is twenty-seven and a substitute teacher who is too shy to talk to his students (although it sure makes his crush on Zoe disgusting beyond belief).
It’s because the point of the Murphys in the stage show was that they appeared to be the perfect upper middle class nuclear family from the outside, dichotomising with Evan’s family situation, while also being all kinds of messy and complicated on the inside. Having Larry be a stepfather is unnecessary and defeats the purpose. If they wanted Danny Pino, they could’ve cast two biracial actors to play Connor and Zoe
If there’s one thing I can give the movie credit for, it’s that the performances from Amandla Steinberg, Julianne Moore, and especially Kaitlyn Dever and Amy Adams were really good (like they really tried). It just sucks that they’re stuck in a movie with a miscast lead and that’s extremely tone deaf.
14:20 I think the intent was more clear in the stage version just because of one song they cut ."Good For You" was suppose to be all of the characters calling out Evan for using them. The reason I think "You Will Be Found" was played so straight, was because he convinced himself of his own lie. "Good For You" was suppose to be the song that show that even though he justified his actions in his head, he is still wrong. you may noice that in "You Will Be Found", he talking about himself the whole time. it's not about Conner. for example "Like you could fall, and no one would hear?" has parallels to "When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around. Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?' from "Waving Through A Window". He think he was 'found', that he found his place through Conner's death. he is not sorry. But in "Good For You" this is called out directly "Does it cross your mind to be slightly sorry? Do you even care that you might be wrong?". The movie was REALLY messed up by the removable of this song. The story no long calls out the awful things he did, make it seem that the writers didn't noticed at all his actions.
Yes, I knew Diva couldn't quit before tackling this one! From casting to cutting the songs that actually showed him in the wrong, this was going to be a mess but turned out worse than expected.
We still have ZOMBIES 3 and possibly the two Spookley the Square Pumpkin specials as MHTV episodes. Zombies 3 will be torn to shreds and Spookley and the Christmas Kittens have a lot of explaining to do especially with the Easter egg colored kittens and questioning why a Halloween special needed to have a Christmas sequel.
To me Ben Platt looks less like he drank from the wrong grail and more like he's trying to force his skull out of his skin for reasons I do not want to comprehend.
Let's recap who helped make this movie: Directed by an old man Written by old men Produced by old men And starring a guy who looks like an old man As someone with depression, anxiety, AND autism spectrum disorder, this is totally the sort of crew who we should be allowing to give mental health advice to my generation
This movie exists at the same time that a pro shot of "Come From Away" is available on Apple TV. It's not too hard for us to judge for ourselves which one was the REAL Best Musical that year. I will go so far as to say I do like some of the songs in "Dear Evan Hansen": Does Anybody Have a Map?, Requiem, Good for You, and So Big/So Small. Also, as long as we see clearly that Evan is absolutely wrong to blame his problems on his mom, it lacks the misogyny of the similar "Be More Chill." But "Come From Away" is so much better -- more imaginative, more thought-provoking, more emotionally engaging. This will be remembered as one of Tony's biggest mistakes.
@@kelleyceccato7025 I heard me and the sky on npr and bought tickets that day!! Seen it three times,.have yet to see deh (other than listening to the soundtrack).
Something that felt really off and discomforting to me about the “You Will Be Found” scene is the inclusion of real people who are probably real fans of the musical and people who have had real struggles with mental health issues. Its using the goodwill of fans who love these characters and this story and insulting them with this pale imitation of it. It reminds me of that scene in that shitty Jem and the Holograms remake that included videos made by fans of the cartoon and acting like they were fans of the adapted characters.
DEH is an ugly looking film. Can filmmakers please stop equating "realism" with drab and dark? Also, it never feels like Evan is truly sorry for the pain he caused so many people but is more upset about the fact that he got caught and what this has done to HIM. Taking true responsibility for your shittiness and really having to sit with how badly you messed up is one of the worst feelings in the world.
This is one example of what the novelisation (there was a novel based on the musical rather than the other way around) does right IMO - the whole epilogue details the aftermath of Evan telling the truth to the Murphys. The first thing he does is sit in the road and wait to be run over before deciding against it, and realises he has to own it. He actually doesn’t reveal the truth to the world in the book or the original musical, but the book REALLY gives you a sense of how hard it is for him to keep living while the guilt is tearing him apart from the inside, as well as the burden of keeping it secret.
@@Justice237 that sounds so much better than the movie, maybe even the ending of the stage version. I didn't even know they made a novelization of the show
One thing that tells you the writers weren’t thinking is that Evan admitting to the internet via social media that he lied about the whole thing so that the Murphy family is left alone, it would go over so HORRIBLY for him and it’s very hard to ignore. He wouldn’t be getting glares from his peers, he would have to delete every social media platform he has, videos on CZcams would be covering what he had done for probably weeks to months, and generally Evan would be harassed by anyone he came across. They wouldn’t care why he broke his arm, his anxiety, his suicide attempt - they would just see a ‘boy’ who manipulated a family’s grief for the sake of being popular and getting attention. In other words, the internet in real life would have turned Evan into at best an attention-seeker liar, and at worst, a manipulative predator.
That sounds exactly like what happens in the movie "Not Okay". In case you don't know, a woman lies about having been in Paris when a terrorist attack happens, and when she reveals the truth, she is harassed, doxxed, and isolated. And at the end of the movie, she is forced to ask herself if she's learned anything and if it's possible for her to fix the relationships she ruined with her lie (spoiler alert: she can't).
I listened to the soundtrack before seeing the show. “For Forever” rocked me to me core with how emotional it was. Then I saw the show, and while I still overall liked it, the story was kind of disappointing in comparison to what I thought I was getting just from that song. The movie COMPLETELY botched that song as well unfortunately.
Your comment about the story never dealing with the main character's "dick" moves reminds me of a soap opera storyline that really bothered me: In the 1970s-80s soap opera Ryan's Hope, which I loved, one storyline had Jack and Mary's daughter Ryan (her late mother's maiden name) married to Rick, a cop. Rick got into a undercover job that eventually endangered Ryan, sending her to the hospital, I think. Months later, a pregnant Ryan, a reporter, on assignment, was attacked and hospitalized, losing her baby. At her hospital bedside, Rick yelled at her that she was selfish, not caring about him or the baby she lost, and he walked out on the marriage. As far as I know, no other character called Rick out on his selfish, double-standard behavior, or consoled Ryan about the same. Of course, feminism was fairly new back then, and women were expected to "take it on the chin" and take the blame more than men did. I'm sorry that I never wrote to the show about this peeve of mine. This is to say that a character's gray areas and character flaws, as you said, need to be addressed somehow. Otherwise, either the film is presenting this behavior as moral and acceptable, or the film is just not dealing with it.
I think this pretty much encapsulates why I've never jived with Pasek and Paul as songwriters. Their songs always seem less like they're relaying a dramatic story beat--the way the best musical theater songs should--and more like they're meant to be played on the radio. They're more focused on being memorable and catchy than forwarding the plot (and good lord, even Frank Wildhorn knows when to knock off the power ballads), and the tonal clash can be pretty jarring. That's how you get songs like "This Is Me" from "The Greatest Showman" making it look like P.T. Barnum's circus was a liberating experience for its performers and not horribly exploitative.
This absolutely. The songs from The Greatest Showman are actually better as disconnected pop songs than as part of a narrative, especially The Greatest Show where the Brendon Urie cover sounds like the correct version and the original feels like the cover.
The real musical hell was getting through YT's "warning" for this video and have the button for "yes I understand" show up so I could actually watch it
Also regarding DEH and this really is a personal gripe of mine, but it always rubbed me the wrong way how glossed over the act of Connor ending his life was, I wanted to learn *more* about Connor than the titular character Evan. Idk, just the overall handling of Connor and the lack of insight we got regarding his thoughts and feelings up to that drastic point left me feeling icky, don't know if that was intentional or not?
I can’t believe you didn’t include Jared as a sin of the musical. He was one of my favourite characters in the musical and he has an incredibly intresting character because he pretends to be popular and acts like he doesn’t need to be friends with Evan but its revealed that throughout the show that he doesn’t really have friends and wants to be included like Evan. But in the film they absolutely butcher him, his actor has none of the charm that will roland gave to the character and he loses all of the nuance that the character has and most of his character traits. This turns Jared from a guy who acts like an asshole but deep down wants to be included like Evan into just Evans good friend who cracks the occasional joke. The actor doesn’t even know how to deliver 90% of Jareds jokes in the movie which leads to him being boring and completely devoid of charm
*sighs* Okay, let me have my say here. Been a fan of DEH since 2019. Not only is the music genuinely great, but the reason why Evan works as a sympathetic character is because he genuinely doesn’t want to hurt people, and they really sell the notion that he was thrown into a situation he never asked to be a part of. When it comes down to it, Evan is a socially anxious, suicidally depressed teenager who is suddenly not alone or invisible anymore. But the musical gives way more focus to the people around him - not just with the opening song Anybody Have A Map that introduces the mothers, but cutting Larry’s song To Break In a Glove about his ethos, and most importantly, Good For You - a song that actually shows Heidi, Alana and Jared tearing into Evan for abandoning then and for how selfish he’s become. The movie made almost every mistake they could’ve made with translating this to film. Casting a 27-year-old man in the role of a naïve teenager, cutting the songs that gave focus to the people around him, and cutting the major plot point that holds him accountable … me and the fans were baffled and sorely disappointed. There were, and still are, so, so few voices like mine, who genuinely love the show as who wanted a better film adaptation and were disappointed it sucked. Both we and this musical deserved better.
Despite being a musical nerd myself, I had absolutely NO idea what "Dear Evan Hansen" was about. It wasn't until I saw the movie trailer that I had at least some grasp of the plot. But after seeing your review, I'm GLAD I never saw the musical or movie. As someone who actually has mental disabilities (I have Asperger's syndrome and social anxiety disorder), I'm pretty disgusted that the film chose to make Evan look like the victim just because he's on the spectrum. Having a mental disorder doesn't give you a free pass to manipulate others to your will. Also, I agree with you on Pasek and Paul: Their musical style is NOT suited for such a dark, serious story. They're better off working for Disney or other family-friendly works.
"waving through a window" is such a funny song to me because like "I learned to slam on the breaks/before I even turn the key" ... when you drive a car, your foot is SUPPOSED to be on the break before you turn the key.
I’m honestly surprised you didn’t talk more about the cut songs in this, because that does play into part of why I think this movie failed. The director has stated that the replacing of Anybody got a Map with Waving through a Window as the opener was done because he wanted to get the audience into Evan’s perspective right away. Same with cutting Good for You. That, combined with Ben Platt’s casting, makes this movie feel too much like a vanity project meant to cement Platt as the definitive Evan Hansen at the expense of the story and other characters. And if that was really all that they wanted, they could’ve just pulled a Hamilton and released a pro shot with the original cast.
Another reason I believe worth mentioning as to why actors in their (early) 20s can pass for high-schoolers, is because there are laws that do allow REAL high-schoolers who are not passing their classes, to stay in high school up until they are in their 20s -though specific ages vary in the U.S. depending on the different sates. (And if you're in the drama club in high school, you'll know all about the processes that it takes to pose as a character older/younger than your actual age.) Heck, Kevin Bacon was 24 when he did 'Footloose', and his story was that he was posing as a transfer student from Philadelphia, so he would settle into a high school setting before they officially started filming (especially since they had to keep it a fairly private filming in an actual high school, because they didn't have the budget to build a Hollywood set and cast so many extras as background students). But a FULL DECADE beyond your teens?! Sure, you can pass as a child/teen in voice-acting for animation at pretty much any age (if you have the right voice talent). But when you yourself are on camera, there are just too many noticeable physical differences that simply can't be covered up with make-up!
What's wild to me, though, is that I feel like Ben in real life reads younger than whatever they heck they did in an attempt to "age him down" for the movie!! Like, sure he wasn't going to read realistically as 17 at 27, but I swear whatever they did made him look *older* and gave him way more of a creepy vibe than if they'd just left his looks as-is! Heck, I just looked up a video of him performing on the Today Show from *two weeks ago* , and I could pretty easily buy him as at least early-mid 20s; whereas whatever they were going for in the DEH movie made him look strikingly older!
@@MusicalHell Exactly!! I'm like... how did they, in an effort to make him look younger, manage to make him look so much *older* !? 😂He still does have a quite youthful face; just leaving it be would have been so much better!
As much as I liked Ben Platt in the Broadway stage version of DEH, I still think Josh Groban was more deserving of that 2017 Tony Award for Best Actor than Platt.
Ya forgot to mention how Amy Grant recently put out a cover of 'You Will Be Found' and marketed it as a Christian Ballad without having to change any of the words.
I agree, but I also feel like the writers (if they ever had the thought to make the Murphy's the mains) would have probably thought that was too close to NtNs plot
They could have also equally focused the story around Alana if they wanted to go down the route of 'mentally ill outsider to the situation trying to help with the best of intentions' like they thought they were doing and keep the story from being too close to NtN. There's not a lot of representation for women of color when it comes to discussions of mental health, and with the right writers in place, it could have provided a lot of really great insights. Not to mention Alana being an overachieving student with anxiety is a FAR more compelling internal struggle than what DEH presents here.
Hello Diva, oh Magnificent Queen of the Night! I've seen your videos in the past but I've only really started getting into your channel last fall, and it's been an incredible source of laughs and well-placed critique, and frankly it's also been a great series of videos to listen to in the background while studying! I was INCREDIBLY excited when you hinted towards this review, but just in general, thank you for all the wonderful court cases (and your Know the Score and MHTV videos too!) It's proven to be a great comfort-
This movie reminds me of John campea (yes I know) review of snake eyes, a gi joe orgins. He quote “it’s hard to like the movie when it’s hard to like the hero, and it’s hard to like the hero when he’s actually the villain”. That’s how I feel about Evan Hanson.
I understand your points on why DEH is creepy, but I've seen it as Evan buying into the fantasy. People who are socially awkward and cut off, especially those who might be traumatized, have very rich fantasy lives. With no Connor left alive to contradict him, he may have built it up to be more real than it actually was.
It’s a shame because I really LOVED this show when I saw it on Broadway. I’m not someone who cries at a lot but this one did it to me. And I was SO pumped when I saw the trailer. Such a disappointment. Granted, I think some things worked (the actors playing the Murphy’s were all fantastic), there was just way more bad than good.
I've mentioned it before in the comments for this channel, but Spring Awakening was the musical that held my hand through some of the darkest moments of my teen years. Thing is, I graduated high school in 2017, so I was probably the ideal age to get into DEH when it first came out. I liked listening to a few of the songs now and then (the best one IMO being Good For You which of course is cut from this film because we don't dare question Evan's purity), but the musical as a whole always felt a bit off to me, though I had a hard time articulating why at the time, so I kept fixating on Spring Awakening a decade late to the party during much of DEH's initial hype. I find it fascinating because DEH was attempting to speak directly to the struggles of my generation, but as an autistic, queer young adult with anxiety I felt more genuinely understood by a musical from 2006 that's a roughly faithful adaptation of a play that was first performed in 1906. Not trying to knock the experience of anyone for whom DEH was really meaningful, but there's my musical theater therapy experience!
1:53: Why do so many Hollywood adaptations do that? If the popular song wasn't first in the score, let a little anticipation build before it starts playing at the time it was designed to play. Songs aren't just empty spectacle (in competent musicals), they're character beats and plot points. Just like fight scenes in a competent action film! 11:40: I've never related so much to a demonic .png.
I’ve also heard that you shouldn’t open a musical with the “I Want” song because the world needs to be established before it matters what a character wants.
Say what you will about the original "Dear Evan Hansen", but this movie was *so* much worse! Every positive quality from the original wasn't present and every negative quality from the original was accentuated. I'm so glad that nobody in my family wanted to see this movie with me while it was in theaters. 😅
I think with a few changes this story could be less creepy. Just spitballing here but what if Evan didn't have a crush on Zoey? What if it wasn't infatuation but more admiration because Zoey is everything that Evan isn't and wants to be. What if Zoey is actually the one who starts the relationship and even though Evan isn't really into her that way he just goes along with it like he does with everything else because it makes the Murphy's happy again. This way it's more of the good intentions he originally had and reads less than someone trying to infiltrate their lives.
I can’t really articulate my thoughts well. But my personal issue with “You Will Be Found” is how dismissive it feels oddly. I don’t want someone to tell me I’m not alone. I get that all the time. I want to know that I’m not the first to experience these feelings. When I think of a song that makes me feel seen I think of Lost One’s Weeping. It’s a different beast entirely, but gets my point across. It tells an utterly recognizable tale of a boy who feels like his sense of self and hope was crushed while in school. With lyrics such as “Just open up your eyes why don’t you grow up and see? But what the hell is growing up and tell me when will I be?” it embodies my personal “someone gets it”. The comfort found in a song like that is found because those are the emotions I felt. It’s like the musical embodiment of show don’t tell
I don't know precisely why, but I can much, much better sympathize with serial murderer Sweeney Todd than Evan Hansen in this musical. Lying to an entire grieving family and defaming the memory of their loved one is such a heinous act in my book that it is impossible to justify. And that's just doing it once: Evan maintains (and even fortifies) the falsehood for most of a school year. I was a socially-inept loner in high school, too, and I resent that this musical thinks it'd be perfectly understandable for someone like me to stoop so low as Hansen does to gain acceptance and a love interest. Yes, Evan looses both in the end, but he's also given a Houdini-esque escape from many of the the long-term consequences; he's graduated from high school and never has to see those people again, the Murphys cutting him off arguably minimizes the guilt he might feel for the pain he caused them, and Zoe seems to have gotten over the whole thing enough to at least be friendly with him. He's no worse off than where he started; in fact, the ending implies a new beginning for him in the future, the experience having somehow given him a new lease on life. Too bad it came on the backs of other people's suffering. Ugh. This is the first time I've thought this court has been too lenient in its judgement. p.s. I would have added a sin for the clumsy way Evan's friend Jared is handled. He's saddled with a lot of dated, no-homo humor in the stage version. The movie recognizes this and makes him gay to compensate but refuses to alter the lyrics to "Sincerely, Me," resulting in the gay character having to deliver the cringe-y "but not because we're gay" line. And then, he almost completely disappears from the plot after that song.
So that scene where the mom is in denial and says that Conner set up different email accounts? In the musical it was actually *Evan* who says that after Zoe casts doubt on his and Connor's friendship. Because heaven forbid Evan Hansen do anything wrong in this movie.
Award fact Dear Evan Hansen was nominated for 4 Razzie Awards last year, but went home empty handed: Worst Actor for Ben Platt (lost against LeBron James in Space Jam: A New Legacy) Worst Screen Combo for Ben Platt and any other character who acts like Platt singing 24/7 is normal (lost against LeBron James and any Warner cartoon character or Time Warner product he dribbles on in Space Jam: A New Legacy) Worst Supporting Actress for Amy Adams (lost against Judy Kaye as Queen Elizabeth and Barbara Cartland in Diana: The Musical) Worst Director for Stephen Chbosky (lost against Christopher Ashley for Diana: The Musical)
You know, when you said that the music does not match the plot and the irony of it all, my thought went immediately to Heathers and how they deal with that sub-plot of Veronica faking her suicide notes. Me Inside of Me, anyone? It's doing such a good job, it has comedy, heartfelt commentary on mental health, all while making it abundantly clear how fake it all is.
Also, from someone who only knows DEH from a few AMVs and this video now, what the hell is that guys problem? He GETS therapy. He GETS medication. Most neurodivergent kids or kids struggling with mental health problems would KILL to have this.
11:22 They should've kept the camera in the locker and zoomed out so that she's alone and surrounded by more and more darkness. That would convey the idea of isolation much better than her standing in the hallway with a random Hitchcock zoom.
"You Will Be Found" sets me off because my oldest friend sang it to me when I was seriously in crisis...and then several months later told me I was "exhausting to be around" and dumped me over text. Fitting somehow.
For a long time I genuinely thought DEH was a Heathers-esque dark comedy musical about a boy who was in love with a boy at his school who was nice to him exactly once before committing suicide. And I just got more and more confused and disappointed the more I learned about the actual plot
It seems like on some level that’s what the show wanted to be but then it also got pulled in the direction of being a schmultzy feel good story about overcoming mental illness and a stereotypical liar revealed plot at the same time and the resulting multi car pileup somehow became Gen Z’s equivalent of Rent
With this, La La Land and The Greatest Showman (and the new song for the Aladdin live-action remake) I've realized Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are atrocious lyricists... with a few exceptions here and there, their lyrics are basically a series of greeting-card platitudes strung together into whatever music they think can make it sound the most emotional or inspirational (at least the La La Land songs had some lovely melodies from Justin Hurwitz... I honestly think the only reason City of Stars became so popular was the whistling motif)... I haven't seen the movie yet, but I did see the musical, and it quickly became one of my least favorite musicals for most of the reasons you mention here (I hadn't thought about the musical dissonance, but you are absolutely right about that).
I think it should be pointed out that in the musical Evan talks to an imaginary version of Connor and that version of him is telling him to keep going with the lie.
I’m convinced that this musical is an unsuccessful attempt to adapt the late-career Robin Williams film “World’s Greatest Dad”, where a similar story unfolds but from a father’s actions. At least THAT film played the plot for uber-dark comedy, rather than trying to make it inspirational.
This seems to really hate Heldi as The 2 omitted song "does anybody have have a map" and "Good for you" are her only songs and are the only times was get her perspective. Idk if the actress was just too busy but it is very weird
You should’ve included a sin for the movie dropping Good For You. A song that actually calls Evan out on his bullshit and Heidi rightfully lashing out at him for throwing under the bus in favor of the Murphys
Exactly, I wish that they'd called Evan out, and it seems like he's gotten off Scott free.
The most cathartic song of the entire stage play. I was so disappointed that it wasn’t in the film.
Except the song takes place in his head. So no, it's not cathartic, because it's not real.
@@trinaq Again, the song takes place in his head, so he gets away Scot free regardless. Even in the stage show, Zoe forgives him way too easily.
@@WobblesandBean The singing might be in his head, but the stage version also has real dialogue from the actual characters calling Evan out for being a selfish dick. That’s one of the things that boggles my mind about this movie - even if the song would somehow not translate well, they at least should’ve kept everyone getting REALLY pissed off at Evan and tearing him a new one
If Dear Evan Hansen weren’t a musical, it would be an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Pretending to be besties with your crush’s dead brother to get into her pants is such a Dennis move.
Replace dead brother with dead grandfather and they did do it on sunny.
they find an old man who died in the bar booth and arrange a funeral because both dennis and mac wanted to nail his granddaughter.
I want it written on my headstone that everything Dear Evan Hansen does, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does better. Mental health issues, willingness to engage with its main character’s gray morality, musical numbers that embrace stylization and ambiguity, and giving attention to all its characters in a way that makes them feel fully developed. Granted, it might not be fair to the compare a 4 season TV series to a single movie/musical, but even a single CXG episode can still stand on its feet better than DEH.
Piggybacking off that, "Waving Through a Window" walked so "The Moment is Me" could run all over it.
And now I’m seeing Dear Evan Hansen would be much better as a miniseries rather than cramming a musical that needs a lot of retooling for the screen
In my opinion, Rachel Bloom is also a far better singer than Ben Platt.
I'm not sorry for thinking that.
Agreed, at least "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" realises that its protagonist is flawed, and takes its time to show her many issues.
Didn't Patti Lupone say once that Rachel Bloom and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was one of the few instances of someone knowing how to do filmed musicals *right*?
She's definitely someone I would definitely defer to when it comes to having an eye for doing musicals well... for no other reason than I would fear for my well-being if I were to disagree with her.
You know, this musical would be exponentially better if initially we, as the audience, didn't know Evan wasn't friends with Connor to begin with, and started piecing it together little by little as the musical progresses. It could have painted a great psychological portrait.
Agreed, it might have been more interesting had it been told from Zoe's perspective, and we'd have more insight to how her and her parents are struggling with mourning Connor, and their conflicting feelings over his death.
Never heard this idea, and I really like it.
I totally agree with you, but that would have required writing that is not keeping in tune with today's idiotic writing. Storytellers nowadays think that it audiences cannot handle any suspense. Can't figure anything out for themselves and everything is spoon fed us right from the get-go?
I heard an idea kinda similar to this suggested by Schaffrillas, only instead it’s revealed that Evan actually killed Connor and slowly kills everyone who finds out over the course of the story, making it a horror story as well.
There was one idea that I really enjoyed, if the play the focused on Connor's ghost who is experiencing the play, and is unable to interact or fix any of his mistakes, so he knows how badly he hurt others and how much they cared.
How his mother feels like a failure, how his father feels betrayed, how his sister basically hates him, and worst of all there is some jerk who is pretending to have known you and is grifting your family and others for his own gain.
Personally my main problem with the original is Even gets off way too easily and I think isn't called out enough in the original outside of 1 song
It still baffles me that they still got Ben Platt to play a teenager. Watching him in the high school reminds me of Will Ferrel in Elf against all the elves in the north pole
They should have instead have cast him as a Teacher as an Easter Egg Cameo.
It's ironic, as Evan Hansen is, essentially, Boq.
@@eamonndeane587 a teacher or some sorta adult character
@Eamonn Deane He could have been a teacher at Connor's memorial who introduces Evan before You Will Be Found. It wouldn’t have been obtrusive, he could have had a nice moment, and maybe ended with something like, "I'll now pass the mic to a very special young man, Evan Hansen."
it has definite unintentional Amy Sedaris in "Strangers with Candy' vibes
The fact that they cut out Good For You, the best song in the score and the song that actually hold Evan accountable is insane
That definitely could have been the saving grace of this disaster. It might not have been a very big saving grace but it would have made things a bit less infuriating and be nice to see some negative consequences happen to Evan besides people being upset with him when they learn the truth. Evan needed to suffer a bit for his wrongdoing instead of “Oh I don’t want to date you now that I know you used my own brother’s death to try to get into my pants” or “I can’t go to college unless you let me accept the money the Murphy’s offered us!”
One of the few good songs AND THEY CUT IT. There are MANY sins in this movie but I'm with you, it's one of the biggest for me. Especially since it gave his mother a moment to shine, one of the few she really had and she lost it
Oh boy, this musical caused one of the few times I EVER heard Schafrillas Productions raise his voice. I cannot wait for this teardown.
"I want Evan Hansen to be eaten by a shark"
I can’t wait for when that video eventually comes out
@Warne Goodman Do you think he TRIED TO?
@@warnegoodman tf? no, he got into a car wreck, that’s what killed his brother, it was an accieent
You might even say that dear Evan Hansen BELONGS IN G- TIER!!!!!
The stage version is definitely flawed, but it does a much better job of acknowledging the questionable morality of Evan's actions. Mostly done in the songs that, for whatever reason, they cut from the film. "Does Anybody Have a Map", the original opening number, gives a clearer picture of Evan's relationship with his mother and offers her perspective. It also gives us more time with the real Connor and how his family feels about him.
The other song I'm baffled they cut is "Good For You", which is a banger that really calls Evan out from the perspectives of Heidi, Alana, and Jared (who, sidenote, gets a lot more time on stage and writes a lot more emails than are shown in the film). Not saying that putting these songs in the film would have fixed its issues, but it would have helped at least. That and casting someone younger as the title character.
I highly concur. It would have been far better had they kept "Good for You", since it shows how Evan's actions negatively impact the people around him. Instead, it's like he got off relatively Scott free.
Yeah, it's crazy to me that they cut Good For You! And I'm firmly in the camp of giving Evan grace for the mistakes he made- in the stage show at least, I very much sympathize with him and don't have any problem at all with the ending not punishing him even more just to appease the people who think that would be the only way for him to "face consequences". So I end up defending Evan as a character a lot, but even so, Good For You is an incredibly important song that allows us to reckon with just how far he's fallen into this lie and the negative impact that it's having on those around him.
Taking it out isn't going to make the audience more sympathetic, it's just going to make the whole situation feel even ickier if there's little acknowledgment of how wrong it is! The stage show, imo, creates a really good and powerful balance of acknowledging how wrong Evan's choices are while still allowing us to empathize with why he makes them, and from everything I've heard about the movie, the degree to which it sounds like they needlessly undid that balance, while still not doing anything to strengthen the aspects of the stage show that *were* weaker, is baffling to me.
I can’t even take this movie seriously as some of the songs just make me laugh at how pathetically bad the movie tries to be dramatic and enjoyable. It just seems to be over the top in a really bad way that you can’t help but laugh at its epic failure.
Isn't "good for you" only in his head, though? So he doesn't really get much comeuppance.
Yeah, while cutting Breaking in a Glove was a good move, the other cuts don't make any sense, those are two of the best songs and also break up the constant ballads.
As mentally ill teen who loves musicals, DEH never really grabbed my attention. I saw it’s premise as boring at best and uncomfortable at worse, but the song were sort of nice.
When the movie came on demand, I brought my family along for a hate watch, expecting to at least enjoy the badness.
We couldn’t make it halfway through the movie because I was crying too hard. This movie’s portrayal of mental illness was so bad, it triggered my own suicidal thoughts.
This movie showers Evan in so much praise for being an non-intrusive, passive ill teen while he’s still lying to a whole family about their dead son that it makes me nauseous. I’m not kidding, this movie made me hate myself.
I know that not everyone had such a strong reaction to the movie, but I hate how this movie caused me self loathing because I wasn’t as good as Evan.
"This movie’s portrayal of mental illness was so bad, it triggered my own suicidal thoughts."
OH NO!! I hope you are okay now.
Granted, there were others who disliked the musical's premise like you, but the fandom drowned out these voices.
Because they saw the play as something that helped mental issues finally be seen.
I am better now, thanks for asking! And as for the other people who identified with the musical, I can completely understand that. Representation doesn’t have to be prefect to work, but the way DEH does it specifically was really bad for me. But if it really helped others, then more power to them!
Oh the irony of a movie supposedly about portraying mental health and suicide awareness triggering a mental health incident. I get it. I was triggered a bit by 13 Reasons Why but at least that show was interesting and had a more believable cast of characters that react in realistic ways to the tragic events that they all encounter together.
@@kenthuang436At least until Season 3, where it just becomes a murder mystery combined with sympathizing for grapeists.
I remember listening to the ost of the musical and I legit thought the musical was meant to be a Heather or Beetlejuice type story of a kid who gets haunted by the ghost of his fellow dead classmate and must help him move on by reuniting his family.
That's how out of context the songs feel
Sounds like it would make more sense tbh.
See that, I would have actually liked.
That's what I thought too! And then I went to see the musical and left feeling naseous because the plot is so appalling and, frankly, dangerous
I thought the same thing!
I want to watch that musical instead. Can we make that musical?
Hearing that someone else hates that DEH won Best Musical over The Great Comet and Come From Away makes me feel wonderfully seen.
It also robbed the very underated Groundhog Day musical too.
You hit the nail on the head with the sound of the music not matching the story. Even if the writing isn’t trying to frame Evan as an inspirational sympathetic hero, the music definitely leans into that without restraint.
I feel like, for the stage show at least, the music works for me because it feels like an organic extension of the connection Evan is longing for and eventually finding. Basically, some of the songs in context *are* kind of at odds with how they sound on the surface, but I think that can work as long as the audience can organically empathize with Evan and sympathize with what he's singing as the things he's needed to hear for a really long time.
But from everything I've heard about the movie, it sounds like the huge problem is that that empathy with Evan is never really properly established. So when you have these songs that sound inspirational but are based in lies, it just ends up having more of a sinister vibe than one where we can feel relief that this deeply lonely person is finally feeling connected with the world, even it's a really messed up situation he fell into and ended up perpetuating that allowed him to feel that way. I feel like I'm not explaining it well haha, but yeah... I just can see how the degree to which the music and its function in the story would be *really* dependent on how well Evan as a character lands! And in the show, he absolutely landed for me, but everything I've seen of the movie is just... bafflingly bad.
That’s because the music is knocked off of 80s power ballads and Amy Grant tunes. (I can’t listen to “waving through a window” without “don’t stop believing” running through my head…it’s “fun” interchanging the lyrics to both intermittently)
I cannot get over Ben Platt’s face scrunching. My sister said it makes him look like the Grinch, and now I can’t unsee it.
Ok, but who said people are supposed to look beautiful and cinematic when they cry bitterly? It's deep pain and anguish that he's expressing, and Diva is commenting on how he doesn't look so pretty? Yep, that's a hellish take for once.
@@KingoftheJuice18 All I remember her saying was that it makes the fact that he's clearly too old for the part even more obvious
@@bigbearkat2010 No, she actually came back to the same issue again toward the end of the video and suggested that BP looked like he drank from "the false grail."
@@KingoftheJuice18 Afaik the false grail doesn't make you ugly, it makes you grow old very fast. Like, the holy grail gives you eternal life or youth or whatever and the false one does the opposite. The only thing this has to do with beauty is the prejudice that old equals ugly, but Diva never alluded to anything apart from him looking too old for the role and I've never seen that prejudice expressed on this channel.
I was not in fact saying that people should look pretty when they cry. I was saying that making the Grinch face when the character is supposed to be expressing deep pain and anguish is a questionable acting decision.
I think the only reason this musical got so popular is because the songs - when taken out of their original context - are pretty good. I'll never forget how when the trailer first came out, people where surprised about the actual plot because they had only ever seen the animatics on CZcams or fanart
I also always thought that any of the Murphys would've been a better central character and then remembered Next To Normal already exists lol
I disagree, all of the songs sound like christian soft rock to me, and they're mostly very same-y.
Next to Normal was exactly what I thought of when Diva brought up focusing on the Murphys instead.
@Silensy God Next to Normal is so much better than this musical, why doesn’t that get its own movie?
I heard lots of people made animatics of their favorite shows with the songs.
The best chance for these songs to live on now is being used in an alternate movie.
Like how Holding Out for a Hero was used in Shrek 2, which helps gain popularity it didn't quite get from its original musical, Footloose.
@@WobblesandBean Funny you should say that! Amy Grant just put out a cover of 'You Will Be Found' without changing any of the lyrics and the Christian Radio Station K-Love has been playing it! First time I heard it on there I said out loud, "That's from Dear Evan Hansen!"
Jenny Nicholson's breakdown of this introduced me to the play as a whole. I still watch her review every now and then for a laugh. "Mommy, why is the scary man screaming?"
I disagree. While the movie has a ton of issues, her criticisms of the stage show were way off base, and it really felt like she just didn't get it. Why does she criticize that the show and Broadway in general is "10 years out of date" for having a teenage boy use a homophobic insult? Having a character say something inappropriate means the writers approve of it? Such a dumb complaint, that's how many teenagers are. Additionally, all her talk about some apparent metaphor she thinks the movie has about Evan being a tree didn't work for her. There is no such metaphor, waving through a window doesn't refer to branches blowing in the wind. That was really bizarre.
@@warnegoodman In reverse order: The entire "tree" metaphor was a joke because there is no actual thematic significance, good job missing the point so hard you wrapped around and remade the point again. The homophobia in the stage show isn't meant to represent how teenage boys actually talk, it's repeated and deliberately intended as a joke _for the audience_ to laugh at the idea of a gay relationship, and also could've been eliminated with no change in story or general quality, so good job failing at that analysis as well.
@@warnegoodman The homophobic dialogue wasn’t just dialogue. It was written to be humorous and make the audience laugh, which *is* very dated humor. And saying that there isn’t any symbolism is admitting that the story isn’t as well-written as it should be. Because she also explained in that point several ways a tree metaphor *could* have been woven into the story, but the writers didn’t do any of them.
For example, one potential message she said they could have given using the metaphor was that Evan needs a support system. There could have been focus on how the trees in the orchard need strong roots and a stable foundation to grow, and as a parallel, Evan and the other characters could learn that he needs a support system. Instead, Evan doesn’t really learn any clear important advice on how to deal with his anxiety, and the trees don’t have any clear symbolism despite Evan liking them so much and being so prominent in the story.
My favorite part of her video is just any time she refuses to take the orchard kickstarter seriously. After hearing her point out the flaws of it, I couldn’t take it seriously in the play or the movie either. There were a few points in her video I disagree with, but overall it was very entertaining and I go back to watch it too.
I wish that they'd had Colton Ryan appear more as Connor, since he's mostly absent from the film until near the end. The stage version used the character better, since an imaginary version of Connor would appear to Evan, acting as his conscience in certain moments, which you can't do as effectively in film.
You could if you used horror-esque movie tactics, like having Conner separate from the rest of the group, Evan being the only one who sees him, and the arguments happening when no one else is around.
Think a dramatic version of the narrators from the film version of Little Shop Of Horrors
I actually argue that the film could do it more effectively since they’re aided by CGI and camera placement. You can have him in scenes, looking at Evan like a horror movie villain nobody else can see when Evan’s feeling guilty. You could have him being the playful helpful conscience when you want him to by having him pop seemingly out of nowhere or in weird places (laying across busy tables, sitting on top of teachers’ desks, etc) with nobody paying it any mind.
Basically a less horrific Sixth Sense with Connor as Bruce Willis.
They could have gone the second season of 13 Reasons Why route and have Conner appear before Evan as some sort of spirit that occasionally pops in when Evan feels guilty about his deception and they have conversations similar to Hannah and Clay. Conner keeps telling Evan that what he is doing is wrong but Evan insists that this is the only way for people to like him.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: as someone diagnosed with anxiety, whose favorite Disney Renaissance movie is Aladdin, whose favorite Walt-era Disney movie is Snow White, who was seriously rooting for Moana to win Best Original Song, and who really hates P.T. Barnum...I sometimes wonder if Pasek and Paul are out to personally victimize me.
Are we somehow _psychically linked?_ 😀😀
Ben’s performance in the stage version was brilliant and honestly, did deserve that Best Actor win. But for the film, Andrew Barth Feldman was right there.
I’d also say Joshua Bassett could’ve been a good choice as well
I agree, it should have gone to Andrew or Joshua, someone either in their teens who'd had prior experience in the role, or someone more youthful looking to convince as a teenager.
I'll say this about Stephen Chbosky's direction in this movie: At least he got Ben Platt to stop closing his eyes every ten seconds. (Seriously watch any performance footage of 'Waiting Through a Window" and take a shot every time he closes his eyes.)
@karri hart girl I’m in my 30s I can’t drink like that anymore 😂😂😂
Him or Issac Cole Powell.
Tbf, I once accidentally printed out a 30+ page fanfic in class and had to hurriedly rip it up and shove it into the trashcan
Whoa! That's kinda impressive....
Platt cited Grease as why it wouldn't look weird for him to play a 17 year old at age 27. Aside from the fact Grease was over 40 years ago, no one would say that Grease was going for a realistic depiction of high school or teenage life. There's a certain amount of suspension of disbelief we allow because we see it as a fantasy of high school life rather than a reality. Dear Evan Hansen is going for a more realistic depiction so we don't give it that same suspension of disbelief.
Plus, in Grease, ALL the teen characters are played by visibly non-teen actors, so none of them stick out as badly as Ben Platt does here.
If this story was told from the Murphy's perspective, Evan would be a manipulative stalker invading their lives _Hand That Rocks The Cradle_ style.
And yeah, that probably _would_ be a way better movie.
They should've made that! Call it "Fear Evan Hansen" and lean into the creepy Ben Platt acting
I honestly wonder how this kind of premise got greenlit in the first place.
It's a unique premise for sure...but the execution is a big turn off for a lot of people.
How he got away with gaslighting Connor’s sister so hard… “your brother may have been threatening you and making you fearful for your safety in life but hey! Here are some emails that probe he really liked you…almost as much as I do”. Nope. Not creepy or morally repugnant at all.
@@PelinalDidNothingWrong even the whole "man in his late 30s masquerading as a teenager" type thing would have even worked as well.
I’m just disgusted how Evan is using their son and brother’s suicide as a means to become more popular and to hit on Conner’s sister. And I have become rather clingy to people in the past. Doing that is just wrong and if Evan was real and I had just met him and learned he was doing this, I would immediately punch him in the gut and then go in for a groin kick because it’s what he deserves for being such a manipulative creep who is using someone’s suicide as a way to get into their sister’s pants. Evan is lucky that none of the Murphy’s grabbed the closest blunt object and just whack him hard in the face with it when they learned the truth.
I have social awkwardness because of my Asperger’s diagnosis and often have trouble talking to people sometimes to the point I get some anxiety and even I think the plot of Evan faking a friendship with a dead kid just to be popular is disgusting and I’m the type of person that people would describe as being clingy.
My case is um I get anxiety in new environments 😅 but wow… how you described the plot….that was kinda scary 😶
My partner and I are both on the spectrum and we HATE this musical and especially Evan, and don't care for the interpretation that Evan is autistic. It's partly because he feels like what an allistic person thinks an autistic one is, and partly because one of the ways my autism informs my personality (and same with my partner) is that I hate lying. I can lie if feel like I need to, but it makes me uncomfortable and I want to be as honest and straight forward as possible and would never in a million years go to such lengths as to fabric a friendship with a dead kid to get in with their grieving family.
@@mirandatilley2486 the part where you said it's what allistic people felt autism looks like feels very true to me
I can't believe that they underutilised Amy Adams. I wish that they'd kept "Anybody Have a Map?", to give her more opportunities to sing, and to introduce us to the Murphy Family and their issues
That number also helps to broaden the focus beyond just Evan.
This and "Requiem" are the only DEH songs that I think are legit good. I find Pasek and Paul really overrated, but Spirited is the one score they finally got right.
@karri hart What about “Good For You”? It slaps and it’s calling out the protagonist
The exclusion of this and "Good for you" makes me think either someone had a beef with Amy Adams or she was only available of like a day on set.
@@one-onessadhalf3393 It’s okay but it’s not really one I’d go back and listen to. Once again, it’s that Pasek and Paul generic pop.
13:16 I think that’s why the music always felt wrong to me. The songs feel less like there were meant to help tell the story, and more to be taken out of context and used for AMVs or have it’s lyrics posted as Tumblr images.
Seriously, I’ve heard songs from this as part of AMVs and rewritten for parody musicals and they fit so much better there than they do in there own musicals.
"For Forever" especially. I really like it, but it's so vague outside of its context that I could make a sad AMV, pretend it's where the song came from, and probably effectively gaslight someone into that being the truth.
That's really just the general Pasek and Paul vibe to be honest. They've never been great at plot songs.
I remember Jenny Nicholson said something similar in her review of The Greatest Showman, where she said that the songs felt more like they were designed for radio air time rather than helping to tell the movie’s story. She did a test to see how many of the songs could stand on their own, divorced from the context that they were from a musical, and all but two of them could, which isn’t great 😕
THIS. I like the songs so much out of context-they work so well to picture various blorbos and/or OCs to, but they just don’t work with their own source material
Yes I found the show just off Spotify and love it filling an imaged better more fitting script in my mind and was shocked much I disliked the movie
The late great Robin Williams did this premise so much better in his film, World's Greatest Dad. Unlike Evan's character, Robin's character has to deal with the fallout of his misdeed, and has to take real responsibility for his actions.
Between this, Jenny Nicholson, and Sarah Z, I’ve spent more than twice as much time watching content ABOUT DEH than the actual movie.
It’s pretty sad that the CZcams animatics I’ve seen for the songs are more visually interesting than the the movie’s cinematography.
What I'm saying is that this should've been animated.
You see szin's?
@@ForrestFox626 Yep.
Every time Evan lashed out to his mom over things she couldn't help (while working her ass off to pay his meds/thrrepy/college) I wanted to rip his face off with my nails.
I love how the show could be a horror thriller for the Murphys' pespective. I complete stranger lies about being best friends, with their dead son, almost worming his way to Connor's place while dating their daughter and starts self pitying blubbering once the truth comes up. I'd be pretty terrified (Amy Adams especially looks like she's back on Sharp Objects during that scene)
Yuuuuuup. I'm earnestly angry that there's ANYONE out there who defends Evan's actions. He's 17 in the story, isn't he? He's WAY old enough to know better. But they play him like he's a freshman, with how childish he acts.
They way he treated his mom turned me off to the character
Evan using a dead kid’s death to make himself popular and to make people like him disgusted me and I’m the type of person who has freaked out before because someone I had met on an online dating site suddenly stopped talking to me for a day and I automatically think that they hated me and something is inherently wrong with me for people to keep abandoning me and so I send dozens of messages to see if they still liked me. You know you’ve done something horribly wrong when a person that can be described as needy and clingy is disgusted by your actions.
The feeling you have about ripping his face off?? I am RIGHT there with you, my god
one thing I didn't like is the Cut the song "Good for You" where Hedi, and his "friends" call him out on what he has been doing.
Hi, Diva. I don't know if you remember me at all, but a long time ago I sent an ask on Tumblr where I was super doubtful of myself and worried that I was a heartless person because I didn't like this show--- for many of the same reasons you eloquently listed here. Your words of advice and reassurance gave me the courage I needed to stand by my opinion and find those in the musical theatre community open to having critical discussions on how the show handles its themes. In many ways, coming back to your channel to finally see your video on DEH feels almost like coming home. Your videos have been a huge part of adolescence and while it'll be sad to see you retire, I'm glad to have had the privilege to be encouraged by you to hold onto my beliefs.
You should not feel heartless for not liking the show, it's a divisive story with a very bad main character.
I'm still shocked this got as popular as it did once I read a synopsis.
I think that there are some musicals that are well liked and extremely popular that a minority of musical lovers actually disliked the show themselves. I have no real interest in Hamilton because rap and hip hop is one genre that I never listen to and it isn’t the type of music for me. I can respect it as a work of art and how it has made a Founding Father’s life much more interesting that people actually are interested in that part of history now. I’m just not going to go out of my way to see it performed live on stage. I’m also not a huge fan of Peter Pan and that’s okay. Everyone should be entitled to like or dislike different musicals because of personal taste and opinions.
I just want to tell you- if you don't like a show, that doesn't have anything to do with your personal character my friend. You are allowed to like or dislike media, and that has nothing to do with who you are as a person 💜 you can always keep your opinions like that to yourself, but I hope that if you want to, you will at some point feel more comfortable sharing your thoughts about media with other people bc your opinions are valid and valuable, because you yourself are
There are actors in their late 20s who can convincingly play high school students. Ben Platt is not one of them.
Especially Asian Americans.
They tried to shoehorn a "mental health message" into the plot by the cost of cutting important points like the Connor ghost tempted Evan into using his memory to gain advance over the murphy for his own behalf. Actually they cut everything who could paint Evan into a bad light, daddy loved his child star so much that couldnt let him be anything except a flawless snowflake i guess
I think if it wasn't for the fact he's a nepo-baby that got the job due to his Dad's involvement, Ben Platt's casting may have not been such an issue, but a problem nonetheless. And credit to him, even with a successful Dad, Ben Platt's vocal abilities cannot go ignored
I don't know, I find that weird "emo yodel" he does at the end of every other line extremely off-putting. '80s-cookie-cutter-country-pop-ish vocal mannerisms like that annoy me to no end.
All the quieter vocals sound like they stuffed the singers into a full wardrobe with a dictaphone to record them, too.
@Henry Gvidonas Will now be referring to vibrato as “emo yodel” from now on lmao
Nepo-what?
@@gracekim25 Nepo-baby. That means someone who gets the best acting or singing jobs because their parents were also actors or singers. They may or may not have actual talent, but they got their start because Mommy and Daddy pulled strings.
@@colleen4everOr big name producers.
What annoys me is that Evan could actually be a more sympathetic if they actually made his actions more intentional.
The movie (and the play too I think) uses Evan's mental illness as an explanation for his actions but doesn't explore how he justifies his actions to himself. And his suicide attempt is used more as a "but look Evan is sad too" gotcha even though it creates a parallel between him and Connor that could be explored.
If you think about it Evan has multiple reasons to resent Connor
1. Evan blames his issues on his father leaving and his mother working. Connor on the other hand lives Evan's dream life yet still commits suicide. This could make Evan think that Connor was the problem, his issues weren't that severe and Evan deserves his life more.
2. Connor dies and everyone is suddenly saying good things about him, while Evan's suicide attempt didn't improve his life at all. This could make Evan think that Connor was actually the lucky one for dying. This would again not make him feel sympathy for Connor
3. Connor was mean to Zoe, making Evan think that he could be a kind of saviour to her.
This way Evan's callousness towards Connor's death would stem from his own suicidal ideation and make him look a lot more sympathetic.
Basically, if you turn the suicide into a murder, “Dear Evan Hansen” is a high school musical version of “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.
As a former 19-year-old ardent defender of the show that is currently a 25-year-old lukewarm defender of the show, I think your part about the musical dissonance is representative of a larger problem with the show: the story that Pasek, Paul, and Levenson wanted to tell is vastly different from the story they actually told.
I blame this partly on the choice to market the show to a younger crowd (it's the same reason 13 Reasons Why is flat out dangerous and despised while Euphoria is a challenging critical darling), but the missteps were there before the show opened.
The writers talked about how the show was a lot more sardonic and mean-spirited in it's earlier iterations. "You Will Be Found" in particular was originally a condemnation of performative grief and slacktivism, but the final version of the show is exactly what it was trying to satirize.
One thing I think the show does well is how it depicts the internet. By painting with broader strokes than most shows, they captured really well how digital anonymity affects the way we process empathy, the way we have to relearn how to interface with people in the real world, and the way attention and connection seems easier to attain but is harder than ever. More importantly, it does it in a way that's a lot less likely to age poorly. It gives me hope that once the show comes out for amateur and regional licensing (which should be soon, now that the Broadway production is closed and the tour is winding down), other directors and artists can find ways of presenting the show that solve some of these dissonances. There's a conversation over whether the show’s flaws can be solved through directorial reinterpretation or if it's fundamentally broken, but I look forward to seeing other theaters do DEH and finding out for ourselves.
Watching this reminds me of the Sandra Bullock romcom "While you were Sleeping" where Sandra Bullock plays a lonely train worker who saves a man's life and pretends to be his Fiancee so she can visit/stay with him at the hospital. The lie ends up taking on a life of its own and hijinks ensues. It's a movie with a somewhat similar premise of a lonely person finding a family but does it like 1000x better. We actually like Sandra and understand why she's doing what she's doing even though it's not ethical. (And yes I'm sure the character is not named Sandra Bullock I just don't feel like looking it up)
Exactly. Sandra’s character has a reason to keep up the charade because she is completely alone and she saved the man’s life which led to a misunderstanding with his family and she originally just wanted to make sure he was okay. Evan lied as a means to get into the pants of a dead kid’s younger sister which is a really horrible thing to do no matter what. Sandra was just doing it to have a sense of family and not to jump the bones of the guy she had saved.
I'm kind of surprised there wasn't a sin regarding the fact that they left out 'Good For You,' the song where Heidi, Alana and Jared call him out for basically abandoning them. There was absolutely no reason, plot-wise, that such an important moment in Evan's arc where he starts to see how his behavior is affecting the one closest to him should've been left out, and excluding it emphasizes the writers' attempts to make Evan seem like a victim and not nearly as guilty as Connor's neglectful parents!
Evan basically got away with being a horrible person throughout the movie. I mean he used the death of a classmate for his own gain to become popular and to get into the pants of the dead kid’s sister. Even I find that disgusting and people have called me clingy and needy because I have abandonment issues and sometimes think that I must do whatever people want me to do to get them to like me.
I have so many issues with this musical, and originally, out of spite, I started looking up fanfic where Connor lives and gets together with Evan. I shouldn't have been surprised to find that the best versions of this thing exist in the fans minds. Connor/Evan OTP
Honestly, “Waving Through A Window” is a _fantastic song_ divorced from the movie.
Dear Evan Hansen is reprehensible for a lot of reasons, but not visiting your therapist and still paying for appointments with your mother's money is beyond the pale. Australia's Medicare isn't perfect, but you only have a limited amount of sessions with your therapist per year. What a waste of quality mental health growth!
I feel like the scale of disaster from this movie should not go understated. It's disastrous results bled into the original stage show, resulting in it suffering on tickets, and closing on both Broadway and the Westend. Meanwhile Come From Away lasted months longer in both areas and is going on tour in the UK. So even without the Tony's, it's easy to say which musical got the last laugh
And i thought things were bad with the Rent adaptation, but somehow dear even Hansen managed to sink lower than that .😊
So basically every other character but Evan Hansen would've been a better main character than Evan Hansen.
YES! I am still so bitter about how robbed The Great Comet was. The score was so unique and brilliant and I would argue that it handled topics like depression and suicidal thoughts with more nuance.
I was a large fan of DEH whenever it came out. (But I was a bigger fan of CFA and was mad it got practically nothing at the Tonys.) I was struggling with undiagnosed social anxiety at the time, eventually getting diagnosed the year after DEH made it to broadway. "Waving Through a Window" was a song that resonated with me because I felt like not a lot of media, specifically music, tackled social anxiety and tackled it well. It tackles the isolation, but the fear of being perceived. And I do think that it is one of the strongest songs in the show.
Anyway, I, eventually, stopped listening to the music because I was getting bored of it. I didn't return to it until around the time this movie came out. I like the first part of the movie, but I think it keeps getting worse the further into the plot it goes. I think the movie just brings out the issues with the musical a lot more than was present in the musical. As the stage and film do have different strengths and weaknesses.
I also do think that removing "Anybody Have a Map?" takes away from the character introductions and the introductions to their character dynamics. Same with "Good for You".
A musical focused on the Murphys is a great idea! Focus on a mother in denial about the death of her son, a father unable to help, a daughter feeling like her trauma is being neglected...oh wait, that's Next to Normal.
This movie becomes a lot more upsetting but also kind of darkly funny if you imagine that Evan actually is twenty-seven and a substitute teacher who is too shy to talk to his students (although it sure makes his crush on Zoe disgusting beyond belief).
or just a dorky adult man who keeps showing up at his HS years after he graduated because he doesn't have anything to do while his mum is at work
I remember when the most controversial thing about this movie was the fact that Larry was Connor’s stepfather in this version.
It’s because the point of the Murphys in the stage show was that they appeared to be the perfect upper middle class nuclear family from the outside, dichotomising with Evan’s family situation, while also being all kinds of messy and complicated on the inside. Having Larry be a stepfather is unnecessary and defeats the purpose. If they wanted Danny Pino, they could’ve cast two biracial actors to play Connor and Zoe
What a weird change
@@Justice237 you mean mixed 😅
@@gracekim25 Why the correction? There's nothing wrong with saying "biracial," if that's what you mean.
If there’s one thing I can give the movie credit for, it’s that the performances from Amandla Steinberg, Julianne Moore, and especially Kaitlyn Dever and Amy Adams were really good (like they really tried). It just sucks that they’re stuck in a movie with a miscast lead and that’s extremely tone deaf.
14:20 I think the intent was more clear in the stage version just because of one song they cut ."Good For You" was suppose to be all of the characters calling out Evan for using them. The reason I think "You Will Be Found" was played so straight, was because he convinced himself of his own lie. "Good For You" was suppose to be the song that show that even though he justified his actions in his head, he is still wrong.
you may noice that in "You Will Be Found", he talking about himself the whole time. it's not about Conner. for example "Like you could fall, and no one would hear?" has parallels to "When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around. Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?' from "Waving Through A Window". He think he was 'found', that he found his place through Conner's death. he is not sorry. But in "Good For You" this is called out directly "Does it cross your mind to be slightly sorry? Do you even care that you might be wrong?".
The movie was REALLY messed up by the removable of this song. The story no long calls out the awful things he did, make it seem that the writers didn't noticed at all his actions.
Yes, I knew Diva couldn't quit before tackling this one! From casting to cutting the songs that actually showed him in the wrong, this was going to be a mess but turned out worse than expected.
I'm still dreading the day Diva is freed from her post
We still have ZOMBIES 3 and possibly the two Spookley the Square Pumpkin specials as MHTV episodes. Zombies 3 will be torn to shreds and Spookley and the Christmas Kittens have a lot of explaining to do especially with the Easter egg colored kittens and questioning why a Halloween special needed to have a Christmas sequel.
To me Ben Platt looks less like he drank from the wrong grail and more like he's trying to force his skull out of his skin for reasons I do not want to comprehend.
Let's recap who helped make this movie:
Directed by an old man
Written by old men
Produced by old men
And starring a guy who looks like an old man
As someone with depression, anxiety, AND autism spectrum disorder, this is totally the sort of crew who we should be allowing to give mental health advice to my generation
Thank you for that summary 😅 it’s enlightening 🙂(also appreciate the tag indication 👍)
This movie exists at the same time that a pro shot of "Come From Away" is available on Apple TV. It's not too hard for us to judge for ourselves which one was the REAL Best Musical that year.
I will go so far as to say I do like some of the songs in "Dear Evan Hansen": Does Anybody Have a Map?, Requiem, Good for You, and So Big/So Small. Also, as long as we see clearly that Evan is absolutely wrong to blame his problems on his mom, it lacks the misogyny of the similar "Be More Chill." But "Come From Away" is so much better -- more imaginative, more thought-provoking, more emotionally engaging. This will be remembered as one of Tony's biggest mistakes.
If anything Jenn Collella was robbed of the best supporting tony.
@@njdevilku1340 Me and the Sky slaps so hard!
@@kelleyceccato7025 I heard me and the sky on npr and bought tickets that day!! Seen it three times,.have yet to see deh (other than listening to the soundtrack).
Something that felt really off and discomforting to me about the “You Will Be Found” scene is the inclusion of real people who are probably real fans of the musical and people who have had real struggles with mental health issues. Its using the goodwill of fans who love these characters and this story and insulting them with this pale imitation of it. It reminds me of that scene in that shitty Jem and the Holograms remake that included videos made by fans of the cartoon and acting like they were fans of the adapted characters.
DEH is an ugly looking film. Can filmmakers please stop equating "realism" with drab and dark?
Also, it never feels like Evan is truly sorry for the pain he caused so many people but is more upset about the fact that he got caught and what this has done to HIM. Taking true responsibility for your shittiness and really having to sit with how badly you messed up is one of the worst feelings in the world.
This is one example of what the novelisation (there was a novel based on the musical rather than the other way around) does right IMO - the whole epilogue details the aftermath of Evan telling the truth to the Murphys. The first thing he does is sit in the road and wait to be run over before deciding against it, and realises he has to own it. He actually doesn’t reveal the truth to the world in the book or the original musical, but the book REALLY gives you a sense of how hard it is for him to keep living while the guilt is tearing him apart from the inside, as well as the burden of keeping it secret.
At least to me, it really does seem like he was more sorry he got caught than sorry for the actions themselves and it really grinds my gears
@@Justice237 that sounds so much better than the movie, maybe even the ending of the stage version. I didn't even know they made a novelization of the show
One thing that tells you the writers weren’t thinking is that Evan admitting to the internet via social media that he lied about the whole thing so that the Murphy family is left alone, it would go over so HORRIBLY for him and it’s very hard to ignore.
He wouldn’t be getting glares from his peers, he would have to delete every social media platform he has, videos on CZcams would be covering what he had done for probably weeks to months, and generally Evan would be harassed by anyone he came across.
They wouldn’t care why he broke his arm, his anxiety, his suicide attempt - they would just see a ‘boy’ who manipulated a family’s grief for the sake of being popular and getting attention.
In other words, the internet in real life would have turned Evan into at best an attention-seeker liar, and at worst, a manipulative predator.
That sounds exactly like what happens in the movie "Not Okay". In case you don't know, a woman lies about having been in Paris when a terrorist attack happens, and when she reveals the truth, she is harassed, doxxed, and isolated. And at the end of the movie, she is forced to ask herself if she's learned anything and if it's possible for her to fix the relationships she ruined with her lie (spoiler alert: she can't).
Isn’t Evan sending a video of someone in rehab _without_ their consent a breach of privacy?
You’re correct 😅
In fairness, Connor's dead so he can't consent anyway, but are we sure the others in the video gave consent?
I listened to the soundtrack before seeing the show. “For Forever” rocked me to me core with how emotional it was. Then I saw the show, and while I still overall liked it, the story was kind of disappointing in comparison to what I thought I was getting just from that song. The movie COMPLETELY botched that song as well unfortunately.
Honestly I agree, I love the songs but feel like they deserve a better story
Your comment about the story never dealing with the main character's "dick" moves reminds me of a soap opera storyline that really bothered me:
In the 1970s-80s soap opera Ryan's Hope, which I loved, one storyline had Jack and Mary's daughter Ryan (her late mother's maiden name) married to Rick, a cop. Rick got into a undercover job that eventually endangered Ryan, sending her to the hospital, I think. Months later, a pregnant Ryan, a reporter, on assignment, was attacked and hospitalized, losing her baby. At her hospital bedside, Rick yelled at her that she was selfish, not caring about him or the baby she lost, and he walked out on the marriage. As far as I know, no other character called Rick out on his selfish, double-standard behavior, or consoled Ryan about the same. Of course, feminism was fairly new back then, and women were expected to "take it on the chin" and take the blame more than men did. I'm sorry that I never wrote to the show about this peeve of mine.
This is to say that a character's gray areas and character flaws, as you said, need to be addressed somehow. Otherwise, either the film is presenting this behavior as moral and acceptable, or the film is just not dealing with it.
THANK YOU!!! You are literally the only other person I have a scene to call out "FOr FOrever" for what it is *COLD READING, THAT"S IT*
I think this pretty much encapsulates why I've never jived with Pasek and Paul as songwriters. Their songs always seem less like they're relaying a dramatic story beat--the way the best musical theater songs should--and more like they're meant to be played on the radio. They're more focused on being memorable and catchy than forwarding the plot (and good lord, even Frank Wildhorn knows when to knock off the power ballads), and the tonal clash can be pretty jarring. That's how you get songs like "This Is Me" from "The Greatest Showman" making it look like P.T. Barnum's circus was a liberating experience for its performers and not horribly exploitative.
This absolutely. The songs from The Greatest Showman are actually better as disconnected pop songs than as part of a narrative, especially The Greatest Show where the Brendon Urie cover sounds like the correct version and the original feels like the cover.
The real musical hell was getting through YT's "warning" for this video and have the button for "yes I understand" show up so I could actually watch it
Also regarding DEH and this really is a personal gripe of mine, but it always rubbed me the wrong way how glossed over the act of Connor ending his life was, I wanted to learn *more* about Connor than the titular character Evan.
Idk, just the overall handling of Connor and the lack of insight we got regarding his thoughts and feelings up to that drastic point left me feeling icky, don't know if that was intentional or not?
Let's just say other 2021 movie musicals 'Tick Tick Boom', 'In the Heights' and Spielberg's 'West Side Story' pretty much curb-stomped this movie.
I can’t believe you didn’t include Jared as a sin of the musical. He was one of my favourite characters in the musical and he has an incredibly intresting character because he pretends to be popular and acts like he doesn’t need to be friends with Evan but its revealed that throughout the show that he doesn’t really have friends and wants to be included like Evan. But in the film they absolutely butcher him, his actor has none of the charm that will roland gave to the character and he loses all of the nuance that the character has and most of his character traits. This turns Jared from a guy who acts like an asshole but deep down wants to be included like Evan into just Evans good friend who cracks the occasional joke. The actor doesn’t even know how to deliver 90% of Jareds jokes in the movie which leads to him being boring and completely devoid of charm
*sighs* Okay, let me have my say here.
Been a fan of DEH since 2019. Not only is the music genuinely great, but the reason why Evan works as a sympathetic character is because he genuinely doesn’t want to hurt people, and they really sell the notion that he was thrown into a situation he never asked to be a part of. When it comes down to it, Evan is a socially anxious, suicidally depressed teenager who is suddenly not alone or invisible anymore. But the musical gives way more focus to the people around him - not just with the opening song Anybody Have A Map that introduces the mothers, but cutting Larry’s song To Break In a Glove about his ethos, and most importantly, Good For You - a song that actually shows Heidi, Alana and Jared tearing into Evan for abandoning then and for how selfish he’s become.
The movie made almost every mistake they could’ve made with translating this to film. Casting a 27-year-old man in the role of a naïve teenager, cutting the songs that gave focus to the people around him, and cutting the major plot point that holds him accountable … me and the fans were baffled and sorely disappointed.
There were, and still are, so, so few voices like mine, who genuinely love the show as who wanted a better film adaptation and were disappointed it sucked. Both we and this musical deserved better.
Despite being a musical nerd myself, I had absolutely NO idea what "Dear Evan Hansen" was about. It wasn't until I saw the movie trailer that I had at least some grasp of the plot. But after seeing your review, I'm GLAD I never saw the musical or movie. As someone who actually has mental disabilities (I have Asperger's syndrome and social anxiety disorder), I'm pretty disgusted that the film chose to make Evan look like the victim just because he's on the spectrum. Having a mental disorder doesn't give you a free pass to manipulate others to your will. Also, I agree with you on Pasek and Paul: Their musical style is NOT suited for such a dark, serious story. They're better off working for Disney or other family-friendly works.
"waving through a window" is such a funny song to me because like
"I learned to slam on the breaks/before I even turn the key"
... when you drive a car, your foot is SUPPOSED to be on the break before you turn the key.
I’m honestly surprised you didn’t talk more about the cut songs in this, because that does play into part of why I think this movie failed. The director has stated that the replacing of Anybody got a Map with Waving through a Window as the opener was done because he wanted to get the audience into Evan’s perspective right away. Same with cutting Good for You. That, combined with Ben Platt’s casting, makes this movie feel too much like a vanity project meant to cement Platt as the definitive Evan Hansen at the expense of the story and other characters. And if that was really all that they wanted, they could’ve just pulled a Hamilton and released a pro shot with the original cast.
**gathers all my vengeance as a Great Comet fan** LET’S DO THIS
Another reason I believe worth mentioning as to why actors in their (early) 20s can pass for high-schoolers, is because there are laws that do allow REAL high-schoolers who are not passing their classes, to stay in high school up until they are in their 20s -though specific ages vary in the U.S. depending on the different sates. (And if you're in the drama club in high school, you'll know all about the processes that it takes to pose as a character older/younger than your actual age.)
Heck, Kevin Bacon was 24 when he did 'Footloose', and his story was that he was posing as a transfer student from Philadelphia, so he would settle into a high school setting before they officially started filming (especially since they had to keep it a fairly private filming in an actual high school, because they didn't have the budget to build a Hollywood set and cast so many extras as background students).
But a FULL DECADE beyond your teens?! Sure, you can pass as a child/teen in voice-acting for animation at pretty much any age (if you have the right voice talent). But when you yourself are on camera, there are just too many noticeable physical differences that simply can't be covered up with make-up!
What's wild to me, though, is that I feel like Ben in real life reads younger than whatever they heck they did in an attempt to "age him down" for the movie!! Like, sure he wasn't going to read realistically as 17 at 27, but I swear whatever they did made him look *older* and gave him way more of a creepy vibe than if they'd just left his looks as-is! Heck, I just looked up a video of him performing on the Today Show from *two weeks ago* , and I could pretty easily buy him as at least early-mid 20s; whereas whatever they were going for in the DEH movie made him look strikingly older!
Heck, if you look at production stills from Parade he looks younger than he does in this movie and he's playing a 31-year-old.
@@MusicalHell Exactly!! I'm like... how did they, in an effort to make him look younger, manage to make him look so much *older* !? 😂He still does have a quite youthful face; just leaving it be would have been so much better!
As much as I liked Ben Platt in the Broadway stage version of DEH, I still think Josh Groban was more deserving of that 2017 Tony Award for Best Actor than Platt.
Ya forgot to mention how Amy Grant recently put out a cover of 'You Will Be Found' and marketed it as a Christian Ballad without having to change any of the words.
If this story focused on The Murphy’s it would be much better. It’d be cool in the same way Next to Normal was.
I agree, but I also feel like the writers (if they ever had the thought to make the Murphy's the mains) would have probably thought that was too close to NtNs plot
They could have also equally focused the story around Alana if they wanted to go down the route of 'mentally ill outsider to the situation trying to help with the best of intentions' like they thought they were doing and keep the story from being too close to NtN. There's not a lot of representation for women of color when it comes to discussions of mental health, and with the right writers in place, it could have provided a lot of really great insights. Not to mention Alana being an overachieving student with anxiety is a FAR more compelling internal struggle than what DEH presents here.
Hello Diva, oh Magnificent Queen of the Night!
I've seen your videos in the past but I've only really started getting into your channel last fall, and it's been an incredible source of laughs and well-placed critique, and frankly it's also been a great series of videos to listen to in the background while studying!
I was INCREDIBLY excited when you hinted towards this review, but just in general, thank you for all the wonderful court cases (and your Know the Score and MHTV videos too!) It's proven to be a great comfort-
This movie reminds me of John campea (yes I know) review of snake eyes, a gi joe orgins. He quote “it’s hard to like the movie when it’s hard to like the hero, and it’s hard to like the hero when he’s actually the villain”. That’s how I feel about Evan Hanson.
I understand your points on why DEH is creepy, but I've seen it as Evan buying into the fantasy. People who are socially awkward and cut off, especially those who might be traumatized, have very rich fantasy lives. With no Connor left alive to contradict him, he may have built it up to be more real than it actually was.
It’s a shame because I really LOVED this show when I saw it on Broadway. I’m not someone who cries at a lot but this one did it to me. And I was SO pumped when I saw the trailer. Such a disappointment. Granted, I think some things worked (the actors playing the Murphy’s were all fantastic), there was just way more bad than good.
I've mentioned it before in the comments for this channel, but Spring Awakening was the musical that held my hand through some of the darkest moments of my teen years. Thing is, I graduated high school in 2017, so I was probably the ideal age to get into DEH when it first came out. I liked listening to a few of the songs now and then (the best one IMO being Good For You which of course is cut from this film because we don't dare question Evan's purity), but the musical as a whole always felt a bit off to me, though I had a hard time articulating why at the time, so I kept fixating on Spring Awakening a decade late to the party during much of DEH's initial hype. I find it fascinating because DEH was attempting to speak directly to the struggles of my generation, but as an autistic, queer young adult with anxiety I felt more genuinely understood by a musical from 2006 that's a roughly faithful adaptation of a play that was first performed in 1906. Not trying to knock the experience of anyone for whom DEH was really meaningful, but there's my musical theater therapy experience!
1:53: Why do so many Hollywood adaptations do that? If the popular song wasn't first in the score, let a little anticipation build before it starts playing at the time it was designed to play. Songs aren't just empty spectacle (in competent musicals), they're character beats and plot points. Just like fight scenes in a competent action film!
11:40: I've never related so much to a demonic .png.
I’ve also heard that you shouldn’t open a musical with the “I Want” song because the world needs to be established before it matters what a character wants.
Say what you will about the original "Dear Evan Hansen", but this movie was *so* much worse! Every positive quality from the original wasn't present and every negative quality from the original was accentuated. I'm so glad that nobody in my family wanted to see this movie with me while it was in theaters. 😅
I think with a few changes this story could be less creepy. Just spitballing here but what if Evan didn't have a crush on Zoey? What if it wasn't infatuation but more admiration because Zoey is everything that Evan isn't and wants to be. What if Zoey is actually the one who starts the relationship and even though Evan isn't really into her that way he just goes along with it like he does with everything else because it makes the Murphy's happy again. This way it's more of the good intentions he originally had and reads less than someone trying to infiltrate their lives.
I can’t really articulate my thoughts well. But my personal issue with “You Will Be Found” is how dismissive it feels oddly. I don’t want someone to tell me I’m not alone. I get that all the time. I want to know that I’m not the first to experience these feelings.
When I think of a song that makes me feel seen I think of Lost One’s Weeping. It’s a different beast entirely, but gets my point across. It tells an utterly recognizable tale of a boy who feels like his sense of self and hope was crushed while in school. With lyrics such as “Just open up your eyes why don’t you grow up and see? But what the hell is growing up and tell me when will I be?” it embodies my personal “someone gets it”.
The comfort found in a song like that is found because those are the emotions I felt. It’s like the musical embodiment of show don’t tell
I don't know precisely why, but I can much, much better sympathize with serial murderer Sweeney Todd than Evan Hansen in this musical. Lying to an entire grieving family and defaming the memory of their loved one is such a heinous act in my book that it is impossible to justify. And that's just doing it once: Evan maintains (and even fortifies) the falsehood for most of a school year. I was a socially-inept loner in high school, too, and I resent that this musical thinks it'd be perfectly understandable for someone like me to stoop so low as Hansen does to gain acceptance and a love interest. Yes, Evan looses both in the end, but he's also given a Houdini-esque escape from many of the the long-term consequences; he's graduated from high school and never has to see those people again, the Murphys cutting him off arguably minimizes the guilt he might feel for the pain he caused them, and Zoe seems to have gotten over the whole thing enough to at least be friendly with him. He's no worse off than where he started; in fact, the ending implies a new beginning for him in the future, the experience having somehow given him a new lease on life. Too bad it came on the backs of other people's suffering. Ugh. This is the first time I've thought this court has been too lenient in its judgement.
p.s. I would have added a sin for the clumsy way Evan's friend Jared is handled. He's saddled with a lot of dated, no-homo humor in the stage version. The movie recognizes this and makes him gay to compensate but refuses to alter the lyrics to "Sincerely, Me," resulting in the gay character having to deliver the cringe-y "but not because we're gay" line. And then, he almost completely disappears from the plot after that song.
So that scene where the mom is in denial and says that Conner set up different email accounts? In the musical it was actually *Evan* who says that after Zoe casts doubt on his and Connor's friendship. Because heaven forbid Evan Hansen do anything wrong in this movie.
Award fact
Dear Evan Hansen was nominated for 4 Razzie Awards last year, but went home empty handed:
Worst Actor for Ben Platt (lost against LeBron James in Space Jam: A New Legacy)
Worst Screen Combo for Ben Platt and any other character who acts like Platt singing 24/7 is normal (lost against LeBron James and any Warner cartoon character or Time Warner product he dribbles on in Space Jam: A New Legacy)
Worst Supporting Actress for Amy Adams (lost against Judy Kaye as Queen Elizabeth and Barbara Cartland in Diana: The Musical)
Worst Director for Stephen Chbosky (lost against Christopher Ashley for Diana: The Musical)
Even wilder: Christopher Ashley won the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical for Come from Away! And in the same year as DEH!
You know, when you said that the music does not match the plot and the irony of it all, my thought went immediately to Heathers and how they deal with that sub-plot of Veronica faking her suicide notes. Me Inside of Me, anyone? It's doing such a good job, it has comedy, heartfelt commentary on mental health, all while making it abundantly clear how fake it all is.
Also, from someone who only knows DEH from a few AMVs and this video now, what the hell is that guys problem? He GETS therapy. He GETS medication. Most neurodivergent kids or kids struggling with mental health problems would KILL to have this.
11:22 They should've kept the camera in the locker and zoomed out so that she's alone and surrounded by more and more darkness. That would convey the idea of isolation much better than her standing in the hallway with a random Hitchcock zoom.
I'll never get over the great comet, it deserved all the praise that DEH got instead ;w; (my opinion)
"You Will Be Found" sets me off because my oldest friend sang it to me when I was seriously in crisis...and then several months later told me I was "exhausting to be around" and dumped me over text. Fitting somehow.
Wow, what an asshole. I hope you have better friends now.
For a long time I genuinely thought DEH was a Heathers-esque dark comedy musical about a boy who was in love with a boy at his school who was nice to him exactly once before committing suicide. And I just got more and more confused and disappointed the more I learned about the actual plot
It seems like on some level that’s what the show wanted to be but then it also got pulled in the direction of being a schmultzy feel good story about overcoming mental illness and a stereotypical liar revealed plot at the same time and the resulting multi car pileup somehow became Gen Z’s equivalent of Rent
God, as a Doctor Who fan, talking about this show always makes me do a double take
(Marc Platt is also the name of a writer for Doctor Who)
With this, La La Land and The Greatest Showman (and the new song for the Aladdin live-action remake) I've realized Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are atrocious lyricists... with a few exceptions here and there, their lyrics are basically a series of greeting-card platitudes strung together into whatever music they think can make it sound the most emotional or inspirational (at least the La La Land songs had some lovely melodies from Justin Hurwitz... I honestly think the only reason City of Stars became so popular was the whistling motif)... I haven't seen the movie yet, but I did see the musical, and it quickly became one of my least favorite musicals for most of the reasons you mention here (I hadn't thought about the musical dissonance, but you are absolutely right about that).
How convenient that Evan was vague enough about his crush for Zoe to not get the impression that Connor didn't have an incestuous crush on her.
I think it should be pointed out that in the musical Evan talks to an imaginary version of Connor and that version of him is telling him to keep going with the lie.
I’m convinced that this musical is an unsuccessful attempt to adapt the late-career Robin Williams film “World’s Greatest Dad”, where a similar story unfolds but from a father’s actions. At least THAT film played the plot for uber-dark comedy, rather than trying to make it inspirational.
Oh I just know this is gonna be a good one, RIP HIM TO SHREDS DIVA
This seems to really hate Heldi as The 2 omitted song "does anybody have have a map" and "Good for you" are her only songs and are the only times was get her perspective. Idk if the actress was just too busy but it is very weird