Dear Evan Hansen movie? — Page 3

I agree that the movie might make the story feel like a Lifetime Movie.

If all this movie does is get Pasek and Paul the Hollywood clout to make a Dogfight movie, I'll be satisfied.

Yep, that bitchy insult made no sense, she is incredible anywhere. 

Updated On: 8/21/20 at 12:53 AM

darquegk said: "Idina is the obvious choice... I wonder if Alanis Morissette herself, who seems to be the vocal model for the role, would want to do it, and is she a good enough actor?"

Granted I never watched either show, so I don't know if she was good or not, but she did appear in multiple episodes of both Nip/Tuck and Weeds (I'd include Dogma, but she was silent in that movie)

rattleNwoolypenguin said: "This totally will end up being like a Love Simon or Fault in Our Stars kinda movie.

I think you're totally right about that. Especially with Stephen Chbosky directing. He's a good writer but not much of a director. But as you also said, the stage show already has that YA feel. I already kind of equate it with Love Simon in my mind. The movie is certainly not going to be artistically ambitious or risky (or interesting).

darquegk said: "Idina is the obvious choice... I wonder if Alanis Morissette herself, who seems to be the vocal model for the role, would want to do it, and is she a good enough actor?"

i really enjoyed Alanis on Weeds, i think she could be good in the role

I'm in complete agreement with Jordan--Chobsky's work on Perks of Being a Wallflower is near-perfect, and that film overlaps so much with Dear Evan Hansen in terms of tone, style, theme, and content that he's such an obvious fit for the material. Of course, anything can go wrong while making a movie, but he certainly has the potential to do great things with this.

Good direction doesn't have to be flashy direction, and this material would suffer if the hand shaping it becomes too visible. It has to feel raw, intimate, and honest. The biggest challenges in bringing this musical to the big screen will be finding a visual language for the online communication that fills so much of the show and balancing the realism of the world with the surrealism of song. The voiceover diary entries that drive Perks could have gone wrong in a million different ways, but he figured out how to do it without it ever feeling like a "device" in a movie. And while it's not overtly a musical, it has sequences driven by song that feel expansive, beautiful, and poetic (dare I say "infinite"?). 

I'm honestly not a huge fan of Dear Evan Hansen onstage, but knowing Stephen Chbosky is at the helm makes me very curious and excited. Perks of Being a Wallflower is not just one of the quintessential high school films, it is the ultimate "audition" for this piece.