Dear Evan Hansen - Noel Coward

[robertb213]

Sept 20, 2021 7:54:59 GMT 42ndBlvd said:

Sorry Karl didn't like it! I've struggled with mental health over the years and certainly didn't find it offensive. I'd be interested to hear if he hated the stage show for the same reasons, or just its transition to screen. But at the end of the day it's just opinion, same as mine. I haven't listened to a review of anything for years, everything is subjective. I hate some of the most acclaimed things and love some of the most reviled.

[sph]

I know that I did, earlier in this thread, defend him as not being "too old" for this role on film given the usual average age of a teen in Hollywood casting terms, but my god that hair did him no favours. He would have looked much better if they'd kept his hair straight and maybe grown it out a little.

The weird perm makes him look like a middle-aged man.

[robertb213]

Sept 20, 2021 12:55:14 GMT sph said:

I know that I did, earlier in this thread, defend him as not being "too old" for this role on film given the usual average age of a teen in Hollywood casting terms, but my god that hair did him no favours. He would have looked much better if they'd kept his hair straight and maybe grown it out a little.

The weird perm makes him look like a middle-aged man.

It definitely does! Luckily the clothes they put him in and the way Ben carries himself do make him look younger.

[apubleed]

Does Sam T do all shows ?

[showtoones]

Sept 20, 2021 18:53:33 GMT apubleed said:

Does Sam T do all shows ?

He didn’t do the Wed and Sat matinees previously. Not sure if they are adding a Wed down the line but they’ll be doing 7 shows a week when it reopens.

[apubleed]

Ok thank you. Have booked a Thursday night *fingers crossed*

[danielwhit]

I'm about a third of the way through the film at the moment. It takes some effort to buy into it, I must say.

"For Forever" was messy and felt jarring when the tiny breaks in reality crept through as they tried to keep it looking 99% like a man sitting at a table talking, so why he stood to point to the window and turn back is beyond me (and those shots of Platt looking like an excitable 5 year old running through the woods have burnt themselves onto my brain). However, on the flip side, I rather enjoyed If I Could Tell Her - probably as you could entirely believe Evan would sit/stand in those locations and think/sing about Zoe like that. I was preemptively cringing for the end of that, seems they struck a slightly different tone. Requiem also struck a decent note for me.

Enjoying the Murphy dynamics, generally.

Will report back when I've mustered up the energy to watch more...

[sph]

Ooooft just read some of the reviews for this and it's being torn apart. Especially the casting of Platt and his performance, which is sad.

It may still make absolute bank at the box office, but unfortunately seems to be a unanimous critical failure.

I suppose sometimes a great leading stage performance just doesn't translate to screen. Makes you wonder doesn't it? Would Merman have been great on screen as Rose? Would Carol Channing actually have been a great screen Dolly?

[Deleted]

I've only just started watching the film, but I like that the school pep band are playing 'Good For You' in the background of the first school scenes.

[danielwhit]

Definitely got better as it went on. I think it just took me quite a while to "buy into" it. The Murphy unit still feel very solid. I do like the little changes to plot they made, the fact that Alana was much more fleshed out (although at the expense of Jared, it must be said). The final third of the piece is its strongest. Without giving any spoilers away I did feel Evan had more "redemption" here than in the stage play.

How much of this was sung live? Some songs felt live, some felt played in.

The big emotional pivot moments of You Will Be Found and Words Fail hit the spot - Only Us had a very different dynamic here due to the changes, but it works.

Platt I thought did a solid job here - doesn't deserve the slating he's had for the performance (although jury is still out as to whether he should have been, ahem, cast, or not). Stand out for me was Kaitlyn Dever's Zoe - this version gave her much more room to breathe than the stage version does.

[Deleted]

For me,this works better on stage than as a film. On stage you can get away with certain things, but there's something about the way the songs are filmed, the natural style they went for that doesn't quite work. Ben Platt doesnt really look that much older in the film, or maybe i just got used to it as the film went on.

On stage, you appreciate the singing, the emotion, the effort it takes. On film, Ben Platt's vocal ticks, while dialed down, still look weird. As someone else asked, were they live vocals or recorded? Unfortunately he sounds like a bleating sheep during Words Fail. I liked all the cast, the Murphys felt like a family, and thankfully Alana is not the annoying character she is on stage. I felt that Julianne Moore suddenly singing seemed forced. The film does attempt to redeem Evan and it certainly goes a long way to help, but i still have jssues with the main plot point of him lying at the start.

[robertb213]

Some of Evan's songs definitely sounded live. Words Fail, for sure, and If I Could Tell Her as well. Basically any song that didn't have lots of cuts or movement in it.

I still say that Evan's actions aren't deliberately deceitful or malicious. He doesn't set out to hurt anyone. It's a misunderstanding that he should've corrected but it got out of hand too quickly, and then he panicked. Yes he shouldn't have created all of the emails, but again it wasn't done to hurt the Murphys. Then once he felt connected to them, he didn't want to risk losing it all. He's naive and foolish and an idiot, but he's not a bad person. The Murphys were broken, even before Connor's death, and Evan's actions (however ill-advised) did help them to heal.

[robertb213]

Film soundtrack now available on Spotify 😁

[danielwhit]

Sept 23, 2021 20:59:10 GMT robertb213 said:

Some of Evan's songs definitely sounded live. Words Fail, for sure, and If I Could Tell Her as well. Basically any song that didn't have lots of cuts or movement in it.

I still say that Evan's actions aren't deliberately deceitful or malicious. He doesn't set out to hurt anyone. It's a misunderstanding that he should've corrected but it got out of hand too quickly, and then he panicked. Yes he shouldn't have created all of the emails, but again it wasn't done to hurt the Murphys. Then once he felt connected to them, he didn't want to risk losing it all. He's naive and foolish and an idiot, but he's not a bad person. The Murphys were broken, even before Connor's death, and Evan's actions (however ill-advised) did help them to heal.

Very true about Evan's actions. He's caught up in a bizarre situation and does what he thinks is best by letting the family believe the letter is what they think it is. And let's be honest about his initial lie, how many of us would actually turn around and say "no, sorry, I just fancy your daughter and your son killed himself with that letter in his pocket"? I suspect very few of us who were in a position to write that letter in the first place would have anything like the confidence required to put them right at that moment in the headteacher's office. After that, everything snowballs. The email writing is the big mess up - but again that's him trying to protect the fact he lied initially (and not reveal the "weird sex letter" as Jared puts it).

What I did like in the film was how the "suicide note" release feels much more regretful from all sides - on stage it feels like Evan regrets this predominantly because it's messed up his relationship with Zoe, but on film you see the impact on the family much more and consequently redials what we see as Evan's own feelings. Alana seems much more a balanced and considerate character on film too, you can see her wondering whether to release that image or not, and regretting the impact it has very quickly afterwards. I also think the relationship arc with Zoe makes far more sense here, and removes that predatory angle of Evan. 

I genuinely have never had an issue with the structure of it on stage - however now seeing the film (and letting myself digest it somewhat) I do think the film has the better final act. Several reasons: there's more effort to put right the mistakes on Evan's side, we learn more about why the truth never came out (which demonstrates the Murphy's are still empathetic to Evan), we see more of how things are at school (including Evan's relationship with Zoe) and Evan doesn't miraculously get forgiven for no other reason than time heals. Time does heal, but not usually as much as the stage version wants us to believe!

Some sections of the film are still pretty cringeworthy though, I don't need to see Evan galloping in the woods any more.

[scarpia]

Sept 24, 2021 21:53:15 GMT danielwhit said:

I genuinely have never had an issue with the structure of it on stage - however now seeing the film (and letting myself digest it somewhat) I do think the film has the better final act. Several reasons: there's more effort to put right the mistakes on Evan's side, we learn more about why the truth never came out (which demonstrates the Murphy's are still empathetic to Evan), we see more of how things are at school (including Evan's relationship with Zoe) and Evan doesn't miraculously get forgiven for no other reason than time heals. Time does heal, but not usually as much as the stage version wants us to believe!

This was always my biggest issue with the stage show. We get a fast forward that glosses over the consequences of his actions seemingly so that we don't question him as the hero of the story, when his actions are questionable. 

I watched the film with some dread yesterday given the reviews but it wasn't as bad as I feared, and in terms of the above, it is better than the stage show in that regard.

Platt looks out of place though in the film and while his singing is great, his constant eye-shutting gets annoying. I think the direction was also bland and unimaginative; a million shots of school corridors with lockers and that trip to the trees...when they could have opened out the space a bit more given the medium. 

I didn't miss the songs that were cut. But the new one for Alana was bland and boring and seemed deliberately written to become some kind of tokenistic anthem for anxious teenagers. The transitions to songs seemed to jar somehow with the naturalistic take of it all.

[danb]

I’m starting to think that DEH won’t age at all well, and won’t enter the canon of classic musicals. Society has been so self obsessed and neurotic this past 5 years that something equally as self absorbed has found favour. It spoke to me for a bit, but now I find it a bit forced. I’m going again in December to try and connect a bit more.

[sph]

Sept 26, 2021 17:06:32 GMT danb said:

I’m starting to think that DEH won’t age at all well, and won’t enter the canon of classic musicals. Society has been so self obsessed and neurotic this past 5 years that something equally as self absorbed has found favour. It spoke to me for a bit, but now I find it a bit forced. I’m going again in December to try and connect a bit more.

Yes, it's a very zeitgeist-y show. It captured a particular moment where there were lots of conversations about mental health and social media going on. But the landscape of technology and social media is constantly changing and this show may become less relevant and resonate with fewer members of its young potential fanbase as time goes on.

[Theatre Fan]

Now we know why OG West cast member David Breeds isn't returning. He's sharing the lead role of Christopher, in the upcoming UK tour of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time x

[anthem]

Maybe this has been discussed already but I wonder if the movie has damaged the show's reputation/future prospects or people will just see the show based on its own reputation?

[alece10]

Metro gave the film a 2 star rating today.

[talkingheads]

I just can't get over how old Ben Platt looks. I appreciate it's a musical and we have to suspend disbelief anyway, but is there a limit? Why did Platt have to be cast?

[h86]

Oct 20, 2021 17:29:26 GMT talkingheads said:

I just can't get over how old Ben Platt looks. I appreciate it's a musical and we have to suspend disbelief anyway, but is there a limit? Why did Platt have to be cast?

Because his dad is the producer….

[talkingheads]

Oct 20, 2021 18:12:26 GMT h86 said:

Oct 20, 2021 17:29:26 GMT talkingheads said:

I just can't get over how old Ben Platt looks. I appreciate it's a musical and we have to suspend disbelief anyway, but is there a limit? Why did Platt have to be cast?

Because his dad is the producer….

Ah.

[robertb213]

From Vanity Fair...

"Chbosky said. “His understanding of the character is so complete and so profound. I couldn’t imagine anybody else playing it. It’s his part. I felt very strongly about it. And to me it was never even a consideration.”

[danb]

Financially it makes sense.