‘Expensive Evan Hansen’ and its Broadway pedigree get misplaced in translation
At its core, the story does say profound issues concerning the nature of grief and psychological well being, and maybe most pointedly how folks continuously reply to tragedy in ways in which make the aftermath all about them. On this case, that tendency transforms an alienated high-school child nobody paid any consideration right into a trigger and campaign after his loss of life.
Nonetheless, what spoke to folks within the theater is subtle by the medium of movie. Even with efforts to handle a few of these points — tinkering with the ending, including new songs to boost sure characters and excising outdated ones — the main focus stays squarely on Platt’s Evan, who fills in gaps in his troubled life on the expense of everybody round him.
“I want that something I mentioned mattered to anybody,” Evan grumbles in his halting method early on, writing letters addressed to himself as an train urged by his therapist, which does not assist in any considerable manner.
However then a kind of letters is snatched away by Connor (Colton Ryan), who additionally indicators the forged on Evan’s arm. When Connor takes his personal life, his mother and father (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) assume that the “Expensive Evan Hansen” be aware they discovered reveals a friendship about which they did not know.
Evan goes alongside, then begins constructing on the lie. In what feels a bit like “The Music Man,” the deception — and self-deception — works for some time, serving to these grieving whereas remodeling Evan from a friendless outcast into an object of sympathy at first, and finally lifting his standing. Even the seemingly excellent lady (Amandla Stenberg) admits her personal self-doubts, whereas Evan now has an excuse to spend time with Connor’s sister Zoe (“Unbelievable’s” Kaitlyn Dever, perhaps the very best factor within the movie), somebody to whom he may by no means muster the braveness to talk earlier than.
But Evan’s remastered life is constructed on a home of playing cards. Director Stephen Chbosky (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”), working from playwright Steven Levenson’s script, wrings as a lot angst as he can out of that state of affairs, however at a sure level the plot feels as if it is spinning its wheels.
In a 12 months heavy on musicals, the film additionally lacks many show-stopping numbers, with the exception being Platt’s rendition of “You Will Be Discovered,” Evan’s school-assembly speech, an anthem that virally reaches others hurting in the best way that Connor had been.
What the movie cannot successfully do is assist the viewers establish with Evan, who features relationships he lacked by Connor’s household on the potential expense of them, his single mother (Julianne Moore) and friends who’ve invested in his elaborate fable.
On the plus facet, anybody who needed to see “Expensive Evan Hansen” on stage now has an opportunity, with the unique star. But whereas the movie says one thing that issues, for a present whose press notes proclaim it a “generation-defining Broadway phenomenon,” a fantastic deal seems to have been misplaced in translation.
“Expensive Evan Hansen” premieres in US theaters on Sept. 24. It is rated PG-13.
