Dear Evan Hansen (Part 1) - 2021's Movie Punching Bag

PATREON MOVIE DISCUSSION:

This movie was selected by our Patreon Supporters over at the Cinematic Doctrine Patreon. Support as little as $3 a month and have your voice heard!

Dear Evan Hansen is our most expensive episode. Coming in at a whopping $35 for rentals, as well as 2.5 hours' worth of content, we truly have spent far too much on this episode. But it's all worth it for our Patreon Supporters! We love you all, and that's why we spend this first of three episodes discussing some of the history behind Dear Evan Hansen, how the casting for Evan Hansen immediately kills the movie dead, and the beginnings of what makes this movie so frustrating.

Topics: 

• Every year there is a movie that garners the scorn of film-goers. Currently, Dear Evan Hansen has it.
• Detailing the history behind Dear Evan Hansen, it's musical, it's awards, and now, it's movie.
• Ben Platt, the 28-year-old actor playing Evan Hansen, who is 17 during the events of the film, looks to be in his mid-30's based upon the hair, make-up, wardrobe, and camera lenses used throughout the movie. It never stops being a distraction.
• Daniel found Dear Evan Hansen, "very morally troubling and borderline disturbing at times for various reasons."
• Melvin likes movies where someone morally reprehensible builds a house of cards, and even audibly exclaimed to his wife while watching the movie, "See, this is awesome! I love this stuff!". So, in that respect, there are some things about Dear Evan Hansen he enjoyed.
• There are a lot of similarities between Dear Evan Hansen and a little-known Netflix movie called Sierra Burgess is a Loser, another villainous "house of cards" movie Melvin enjoyed.
• The movie really expects its audience to fill in the gaps for so many hard issues, all on top of the fact that Ben Platt looks way too old to perform as an older teen.
• Although the movie has a juvenile perspective to mental health and social issues, some things work like the song 'Requiem', where each family member sings their response to Connor's suicide, and how not everyone responds to the death of a family member in the same way.
• The song 'Sincerely Me' captures a bit of the dark-comedy aspect both Melvin and Daniel wanted throughout the movie.
• Daniel, on the topic of the many hard-hitting themes in the movie, "It's not examined at all. Nothing in this movie is examined. That's one of the problems."

Recommendations: 

• Harold Lindsell - "Lindsell Study Bible: The Living Bible, Paraphrased - Reference Edition"
• The Ezra Klein Show - "The Case Against Loving Your Job"
• Jenny Nicholson - "A Needlessly Thorough Roast of Dear Evan Hansen"