Dear Evan Hansen…spoiler alert!

Yesterday, Marty and I had some deliveries to make in NY and decided to squeeze in a movie matinee, something we’ve never done before. I joked we were going to a weekday matinee like older people, and yes, we were the youngest ones in the movie theater.

We’ve been looking forward to seeing the movie Dear Evan Hansen. We love the music from the original Broadway, Tony award-winning show Dear Evan Hansen and are very familiar with the songs. I know most of the words to many of the songs since we listen to broadway music every Friday in the production kitchen. 

We blew it back in 2018 when the broadway play Dear Evan Hansen was playing at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, NY. Not having seen the play, some of the songs weren’t that clear to me, but seeing them being acted out clarified a lot for me, just like when I finally could stream Hamilton.

Before seeing the film, I didn’t read any of the critics’ reviews; I wanted to form my own opinion. I watched the movie as a regular person and not with a critic’s eye. 

The critics basically hated the movie for one reason or another. The critics all said that Platt was too old to be playing a high school student; he was 27 when filming and turned 28 the day it was released. Give me a fucking break, Mr. Critic! How many other older actors played high school or college freshmen in older films? Well, I’ll tell you…

Let’s start with the movie Grease. When filming began in June 1977, John Travolta was 23, Olivia Newton-John was 28, Stockard Channing was 33, Jeff Conaway was 26, Barry Pearl was 27, Michael Tucci was 31, Kelly Ward was 20, Didi Conn was 25; Jamie Donnelly was 30, and Annette Charles was 29.

How about Animal House? Kevin Bacon was the youngest college student at the age of 20; however, the rest of the cast ranged from 25-32 years old. John Belushi was a whopping 29 years old.

We can continue with Back to the Future, where Michael J Fox played a high school student at 24. Tom Hanks was 37 when he played all the ages of Forrest Gump, including Forrest’s younger years. Here’s another shocker Barbra Streisand was 41 years old when she acted in Yentl, a young high school Jewish girl. Ok, so you get my drift with the too old bullshit.

While Ben Platt won the Tony for his role as Evan Hansen, the critics couldn’t find anything nice about Ben Platt in the film. Wait! They did like his singing! He was meant to play the role for Pete’s sake.

As soon as the movie started, I could identify with Evan Hansen, a socially awkward high school senior troubled by anxiety and depression. I saw that look on his face. I knew that look, a look I’ve seen 100 times. I also recognized how he was hunched over, wanting the floor to swallow him up because he was uncomfortable in school and his own skin.

He was on meds and went to a therapist, which didn’t seem to be working. Another thing I know first hand.

I worked in middle & high school for 7 years as the school lunch director and lunch lady. Many people who worked at school turned up their noses at me for being “just a lunch lady.” They assumed they were smarter than me and knew the students better than I ever could. They were wrong. These kids trusted me and talked to me. They shared their ups and downs. Many times we were both crying or celebrating even a small victory.

My years as a lunch lady left me drained some days. I saw so many socially awkward kids, kids with no friends, made fun of, neglected, and enabled by the educational system. Kids truly felt comfortable enough to talk to me when they needed someone to listen to them, not judge or preach. They also knew as a mandated reporter that if they told me something terrible, I had to tell someone, which I only had to do twice in 7 years.

I saw that very look that Evan Hansen had in his eyes way too often. I saw the character Connor Murphy, the student who commits suicide, in a few troubled students. Students that would rather have bad attention than no attention at all. These “bad” kids had no friends either, like the socially awkward ones; instead of hiding in their shells, they acted out. They acted like assholes because it was the only way they knew how to act. Sigh…

It’s a sad movie with a sad ending but a story that needs to be told. I wished things turned out better for Evan but didn’t. I cried multiple times while watching the film. I left the theater in tears and had to get some toilet paper to wipe my eyes and nose with.

Even though the critics and other movie experts hated the film, I feel like it had the chance to address larger audiences as a movie instead of so many who couldn’t see the Broadway show in NYC. To raise teen suicide awareness. To show adults how painful high school is for some kids. Dear Evan Hansen was a true story written into a book, then a play, and finally a film.

We happened to like the film. In March, we have tickets to see the Broadway version of Dear Evan Hansen in March 2022 at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, NY. We aren’t going to blow it again this time. Proctor’s plays are as professional as Broadway, just without the tickets in the $200-500 ticket range. We did see a broadway show at Proctors back in 2019 that had the original Broadway cast; it was fantastic! I couldn’t see how it could have been any better, and we could afford to go!

I am not a movie critic, but I went to the show as a movie-goer who is a mother and lunch lady who saw this movie for what it was meant to be, not something to piss on as the critics did. I am sure they were technically correct with the problems they found in the film, but that’s what they are paid to do…not watch the movie with an open heart and mind, hoping it sends a strong message to its audiences.

Hey, listen…they say opinions are like assholes; everyone has one. This, my friends, is just my humble opinion.