The film adaptation of the 2015 award winning musical that focuses on teen depression with Ben Platt reprising his Broadway lead role as Evan Hansen. 

Evan is a lonely teenager suffering with depression and anxiety. Set an assignment by his therapist he has to write letters to himself as a way of giving himself a pep talk about his upcoming day. But when fellow depressed teen Connor (Colton Ryan) takes one of these letters before committing suicide his family believe that Evan was their son’s only true friend. Evan becomes their surrogate son and because of his loneliness he embraces the idea of the nuclear family that he never had. 

The premise of this musical is endlessly fascinating to me. On the face of it what Evan does is wholly despicable. He abuses the trust of a family at their lowest moment for his own benefit. But he only does so because he is himself spiralling and reaching out for something to keep him tethered to this life. The impact of what Evan does and how it brings attention to Connor’s life also has a positive impact on not just Connor’s family but the community around them. The moral implications are fascinating if not the films actual focus. 

All good musicals need a few great numbers and Evan Hansen certainly has that. ‘You Will Be Found’ is probably the stand out number but there are a number of other good songs. My only reservation is that they perhaps never quite soar in the way that I would normally like, but perhaps that is again because the subject matter is teenage depression. 

As for performances a lot has been made of twenty-eight year old Ben Platt reprising his Broadway role because of his age. It seems a little disingenuous to me that this would be too big an issue given it has only been six years since he initially did the role and we have musicals like Grease with far older teenagers in them. Aside from this he clearly loves the role and performing the songs for the film. Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever and Amandla Stenberg fill out the supporting roles with the latter making the biggest impact for me as another student finding her own way to deal with depression. 

In a year full of really good musicals (In The Heights, Tick, Tick… Boom! & West Side Story (2021)) it does struggle to stand out but it is perfectly fine as entertainment goes.