Let's Stop With All The 'Hansen' Hate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                              As of last Thursday, darlings, I stepped out of the cultural/Covid divide, and went back  into a movie theater.  I am still here, to prove it.  I chose to see "Dear Evan Hansen," having not seen it on stage, and wanting to see Ben Platt, as well as trying to grasp the hate mongering toward this film.  It is not deserving of it.

                                                  Don't get me wrong; there is plenty the matter with the film; just not what the dissenters are saying.  "Dear Evan Hansen" seems less a musical, and more a film with music.  The musical  medium  is representational, and this film lacks any kind of visual or theatrical style.  The closest one gets is several seconds of Evan, and his friend, Jared (Nik Dodani) doing some  generic dance steps in an arcade.  That is about as much choreography as is, and Jamica Craft, who is credited for this, should not have been. 

                                                  The film, which was shot in Atlanta, GA, looks like Anywhere, USA.  It is much too literal, visually, without any theatricality to give it an extra boost of energy.  Is this supposed to be a musical, an Afterschool Special, a Joan Didion adolescent story, or what?

                                                    No one can make up their  minds.

                                                     Are there any good things about the film?  Yes, and Ben Platt is one of them.  There is, of course, THAT voice, and when he  looks  into  the camera  for the first time,  the viewer beholds pain, and  for  the next 136 minutes, he inhabits Evan, without looking overaged; blending, in fact, into the fabric of school scenes, whenever he is in a crowd. I could not imagine anyone else in the part.   Kudos to Amy Adams, who doesn't sing nearly enough to suit me, but, then, that is her character.  Julianne Moore was the big surprise; her folksy, lullaby rendition of  "So Big, So Small," coming on the tail of what happens at the  Murphys (Adams and Danny Pino) and a confrontation between Heidi and Evan, had me in tears.

                                                        OK.  So stop with the Ben Platt hate.  He inhabits Evan.

                                                        Stop saying Evan should be a gay kid.  Having been one myself,  are you hatemongers saying we are all wusses???????????   That straight kids can't get/aren't bullied?  Come on, now!  No one is immune from bullying.  And how about the old adage of gay actors playing straight characters?  Get over it; it has gone on since pictures moved, and shows no sign of letting up.  And who says one cannot be as good as the other?  Did Jennifer Jones have to be canonized, to play Bernadette?  Oh, excuse me; for most of the hatemongers, you are much too young for that reference.   Ask  your Grandma, bitches!

                                                    Oh, one more thing!  After  things go awry, Evan does display genuine remorse.  The hatemongers paint him as some kind of monster,  but I did not get that from Platt's performance.  Evan may be getting acceptance from those he thought he wanted it from, but it is clearly not making him happy.  A monster would not feel that way.  Get it,  kiddies??????????????

                                                           As I said, it may not be a  good movie, but not worth the hatred.  Here are some filmed musicals which are--"Nine"(2009), "A Chorus Line" (1985), and "Mame" (1974, with Lucille Ball, yet!).  Check these out for much worse mistakes than "Dear Evan Hansen."

                                                            Granted, the movie will be shortly forgotten.  Platt will always be remembered for it.  But he deserved a better environment surrounding him.  Maybe then this might have been  the Oscar caliber musical everyone hoped for.

                                                                 If Broadway musicals are destined to be ruined, then don't commercially film  them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!