Connor has just sarcastically signed Evan’s blank cast with a Sharpie, seemingly an overture for some kind of friendship, but when he sees Zoe’s name on the letter he flips out and storms away. The letter is picked up by Connor, one of the high school’s other (and angrier) social pariahs, whose younger sister Zoe happens to be Evan’s crush. His therapist has instructed him to write letters to himself - beginning, of course, with “Dear Evan Hansen” - and one day he does, at school, and prints it off. Until recently I didn’t know what Dear Evan Hansen was about, and when a friend explained the plot to me, I was speechless, agog, eyes popping.Įvan Hansen is a social outcast with a broken wrist who lives with severe social anxiety and depression. I might be able to overlook all this if it weren’t for the actual story. The direction at times seems to make things worse, with lots of close-ups on his face and a muddled sense of space.

Ben Platt, aged 27, is obviously too old to be playing a high school senior, and the mannerisms he adopts to slip into the character of the excruciatingly insecure Evan make him appear older rather than younger. There’s just no way around some of the film’s problems. There’s a lot about the movie that plainly doesn’t work, and the critical response hasn’t held back. “If you like the musical, you’ll probably like the movie.” So to spare his feelings, I hedged a little. (More on that anon.) I didn’t quite know what the question behind the kind man’s question was.

I was still wrestling with my feelings about it, aided by a documentary about, of all people, smooth-jazz saxophone star Kenny G. The story of an anxious high schooler named Evan who, in order to be liked, lies about his friendship with a fellow student who died by suicide, it had been one of the festival’s most anticipated premieres. The film in question - a screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, directed by Stephen Chbosky and featuring the show’s star Ben Platt - had been the opening-night premiere at the festival a few days earlier. When I nodded and said I was, her husband asked me, with a hint of fear in his voice, “Did you see Dear Evan Hansen? What did you think?” “Excuse me, are you a journalist?” the woman asked through her mask. Last week, as I settled into a seat at the Princess of Wales theater and pulled out my notebook before yet another screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, the nice older couple sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder.

Celine dion because you loved me