Dear Evan Hansen

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I've seen it!

I had a good time and yes, it's terrible, awful fun.

Ben sings the welly out of the songs, but that's as good as it gets. He looks awful and his acting is worse. I'm not sure what age is was pitching his performance as, but it came across as Evan Hansen, The Kindergarten Years. All weird twitches and embarrassed shuffles. You'd run a mile if he turned up in your school canteen and leered the way he does in this.

There's lots of in camera leering in this. Everyone does it, but Ben more than most.

They've tried to soften the story in a couple of ways (Alana is less objectionable and rent-a-crisis), but it doesn't really work. He still seems like a monster at the end.

That said, "For Forever" did have tears rolling from my eyes :D, possibly because it works on lots of different levels (him, Connor, the family) and it doesn't feel like he's fully hooked into the awfulness of what he's doing yet. In fact, all three of the first three songs are great.

Don't be put off, come and join the fun :D
 
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Have you seen the stage show? I’ll see the film out of curiosity, but would only see the show at a serious discount.

I think Ben Platt has a lovely voice but I didn’t quite warm to him in The Politician. The “he looks old” thing was a bit OTT as he looks younger than the entire cast of Grease and Beverly Hills 90210, and probably some later teen shows I can’t remember right now because I’m feeling so very old at the moment.

Maybe because the character of Evan Hansen is supposed to be quite emotionally young (guessing here), whereas the aforementioned film/show portrays their teens as sexually experienced adults who just go to school?

I’ll never forget some complete idiot when we saw The Exorcist on stage, going on and on in the interval about the actress playing Regan NOT BEING 12 :rolleyes: when she probably looked like a young 19. So does it really matter?
 
On film it matters. The stage is a lot more flexible.
 
Definitely matters more on screen and probably more in this too, because as you say, he needs to be believably emotionally immature otherwise his behaviour comes off borderline sadistic.

I've seen it on stage and the show gets away with a lot more. His confessions at the end felt quite heartrending to me, probably because you're sitting metres and metres away and his face is not right up there in front of you. In this, I'm surprised Amy Adams didn't just grab a kitchen knife and launch herself at him!

The 2 new songs do try and soften things by
giving Alana different motivation and looping Connor into the forgiveness more but as I said, not to much avail. I've never thought Evan's mother's song does much to assuage what he's done, but that's what it's there for.

I do really like the score (some of the reviews have given it a much rougher ride than it deserves) and I think Ben sings it terrifically. I've enjoyed his solo albums too.
 
Ellie said:
Have you seen the stage show? I’ll see the film out of curiosity, but would only see the show at a serious discount.

I think Ben Platt has a lovely voice but I didn’t quite warm to him in The Politician. The “he looks old” thing was a bit OTT as he looks younger than the entire cast of Grease and Beverly Hills 90210, and probably some later teen shows I can’t remember right now because I’m feeling so very old at the moment.

Maybe because the character of Evan Hansen is supposed to be quite emotionally young (guessing here), whereas the aforementioned film/show portrays their teens as sexually experienced adults who just go to school?

I’ll never forget some complete idiot when we saw The Exorcist on stage, going on and on in the interval about the actress playing Regan NOT BEING 12 :rolleyes: when she probably looked like a young 19. So does it really matter?
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I don't think anyone's age matters at all in Grease. Ben does look a lot like Sonny in this :D

I thought The Politican was great fun and his age or how it reads doesn't matter there, so I really think it's down to the subject matter here.

Having said that, I don't think casting a much younger reading actor would alleviate all the problems this has, but it would have been interesting to see. It probably would have hurt its box office though as I'm sure he's one of the biggest draws for this (which isn't saying much).
 
So musicals left to see for me this year:

Annette
Cyrano
Tick Tick Boom
Everybody Loves Jamie
West Side Story :disco:
 
I saw a new behind the scenes trailer before Annette at the weekend and it hasn't change my thoughts on seeing this. Even if the trailer does include a heavily bearded Ben talking about the movie and regularly cutting to his younger on screen self.
 
Just seen it. If I hadn’t booked it back to back with Venom 2 I would have walked out. Christ this was a STINKER.

I don’t think I’m one to jump on bandwagons with this kind of stuff, but I hated almost all of it. There are only two vaguely redeeming characters. I can’t even imagine how or why this was popular on stage, but on screen it felt like another film that was embarrassed to be a musical. The songs are also almost universally crap.
 
If you don't like the Big Three (Waving Through A Window, For Forever, You Will Be Found), you're really in trouble with this show :D
 
You Will Be Found was a nice song out of the context of the show, as I’d heard that (among others) before and liked it. In the film though, NO. It starts out well and then became unbearable with what is actually going on visually.
 
I went with a friend after work and she's a total fangirl for Ben Platt, she loved it. I didn't think it was that bad. It dragged on in places though and it didn't make me went to see the stage show.

Cinema was about 90% full though, probably because there was only two showings all day. :eyes:
 
I thought it was great :D

MUCH better than I’d been led to believe and also Ben who plays Dear was brilliant and the age thing wasn’t that big a deal at all

OSCAR 4 PLATT
 
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Going to on demand from Friday. :eyes:

Even quicker than In the Heights did, and the backlash there was more widely publicised.


Musical adaptations DEAD
 
4x Razzie nominations, including Ben Platt for Worst Actor and Worst Screen Couple (for Platt and literally anybody forced to be onscreen while he sings at them) :disco:
 
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I suspect anyone interested has already seen it, but this forensic mauling of the movie is very entertaining :disco:

 
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