A much-admired musical sags on screen

   

     I’ve never seen the stage version of Dear Evan Hansen, so I can’t compare the award-winning play to the newly released movie of the same name. But taken purely as a movie, Dear Evan leaves a lot to be desired.

     The movie’s morbid fascinations — teen suicide being principal among them —aren't easily digested, even in a quasi-musical that seems born of good intentions.

     Evan Hansen has been classified as a musical and it requires its actors to sing at various points. The tunes  often have a soft, weepy quality that befits the material but on-screen Evan Hansen doesn't seem like a musical -- or a superior teen drama.

     The story centers on Evan Hansen, a high school senior portrayed by Ben Platt, who also played Evan on stage. Platt, I'm afraid, has grown out of the role. He’s now 27.

    But the real problem with Evan Hansen centers on an awkward mix of ingredients: A high-school drama (the alienated kid finds a place in a well-defined social scene) doesn’t always mesh with the tragedy of teen suicide.

    Working from Steven Levenson's screenplay, director Stephen Chbosky relies on single conceit. Evan’s therapist has asked his massively insecure patient to write encouraging letters to himself. 

   One of his letters winds up in the hands of Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), an aggressively troubled kid. When Connor commits suicide, he’s found with one of Evan's letters. Connor had lifted the letter from a printer and refused to return to its author.

    Everyone thinks, the letter — a confession of torment which begins with the words "Dear Evan Hansen" — was written by Connor and that Evan and Connor must, therefore, have been friends.

    Suffering from a host of ill-defined psychological difficulties, Evan isn’t exactly an endearing character. He beats back his conscience and opts to go along with the widespread assumption that he and Connor were buddies.

   He also has a crush on Connor's sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever).

   Before long, the school's students begin the Connor Project, an effort to raise money to create a memory garden at an orchard where Connor supposedly found solace. 

  If you can get past the distraction of Platt’s age, you’ll find a few performances that work, notably Amy Adams as Connor’s mother, a woman in denial, and Julianne Moore as Evan’s single mother, an overworked nurse who’s stretched too thin to give her son the attention he needs. Amandla Stenberg has a nice turn as Alana, a cheerleader and high-performing student with troubles of her own. 

    But none of the performances can save a strange hybrid of teen-movie tropes and hand-wringing drama -- all of it followed by the hope that's appended to the story when Evan faces up to his cruel deceit.

   As for the dead Connor: He remains more of a plot device than a character we’re asked to understand.  Maybe on stage it all made sense.

'Wonder' has lots of YA appeal

Because of scheduling conflicts, I was unable to attend an advance screening of Wonder, the big-screen adaptation of R.J. Palacio's 2012 YA novel. Directed by Stephen Chbosky and starring Julia Roberts, Wonder tells the story of 10-year-old Auggie (Jacob Tremblay), a boy born with facial deformities. Roberts portrays Auggie's mom, a caring mother who decides that it's time for Auggie to leave the protected safety of home schooling and attend school with other kids. Owen Wilson appears as Auggie's dad, a father who thinks it's a mistake to expose Auggie to the bullying and ridicule that surely will taunt him, even in an upscale New York City private school. The Pullman family, of which Auggie is a member, lives comfortably in a Brooklyn brownstone. No arguments about money in this household. Wonder touches many bases. Auggie's older sister Via (Izabela Vidovic) tends to be neglected by her parents, who are consumed with Auggie's welfare. Via has her own problems: Her best friend (Danielle Rose Russell) stops speaking to her at the beginning of a new school year. Julian (Bryce Gheisar) becomes Auggie's chief tormenter; Jack (Noah Jupe), a scholarship student who's not sure he fits in either) befriends Auggie. Mandy Patinkin portrays the school's understanding principal; Daveed Diggs appears as one of Auggie's teachers, and Nadji Jeter plays Via's boyfriend. The performances are all up-to-snuff in a movie that explores real issues in an idealized environment. Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) engineers the story to jerk some tears and provide hope. Wonder qualifies as worthy YA fiction. I saw it at a showing that was full of kids, who seemed involved in the movie's every turn, but as an OA (old adult), the movie struck me as a bit of an after-school special -- albeit one emboldened by marquee names and an estimable message; i.e., that we never can be entirely sure we understand why people behave as they do.

Wallflowers of the world unite!

A misfit kid finds his comfort zone.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a better-than-average teen movie enhanced by elements that might have had difficulty finding their way into a similar movie 20 years ago: a major gay character, incidents of high-school homophobia and teen suicide, to name a few.

In adapting his own young-adult novel for the screen, director Stephen Chbosky tries for a mixture of humor and low-key drama. He succeeds in finding a bit of both in a movie whose success may depend on how much you can identify with a young man who -- at the movie's outset -- is keenly aware that he has 1,385 days until he graduates from his suburban Pittsburgh high school. (Somehow, I don't think counting is likely to make the time go faster.)

Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson & The Olympians) plays Charlie, a high school freshman who finds a much-needed comfort zone with a group of his school's self-proclaimed misfits. Charlie hangs out with Patrick (Ezra Miller), a comfortably gay student, and with Patrick's brash half-sister Sam (Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame). This trio of outsiders form credible bonds of friendship, and Charlie gradually begins to fall for Sam.

Set in the early '90s, Wallflower is a coming-of-age tale punctuated by well-documented problems of adolescence. Charlie, for example, is dealing with the recent suicide of a friend. Patrick has agreed to conceal his affair with a star football player, and the perky, rebellious Sam frets about getting into college. At one point, a precocious fourth member of the group (Mae Whitman) decides to declare herself Charlie's girlfriend.

Those who haven't read Chbosky's book won't know that the story harbors a major secret. Revealed toward the movie's end and hinted at in flashbacks, this secret can feel as if Chbosky is not only trying to be topical, but is doing the thematic equivalent of piling on, adding yet another problem to Wallflower's already large collection.

For me, Miller gives the most notable performance. Not many saw Miller's terrific work in the polarizing We Need to Talk about Kevin, but those who did will recognize that this young actor has range and appeal that far outshines the rest of Wallflower's able cast.

Adults don't play a major role here. Dylan McDermott is cast as Charlie's dad; Kate Walsh plays his mom, and Paul Rudd has a nice turn as a high school English teacher who forms a bond with Charlie, loaning him books.

As teen movies go, Wallflower tends to dwarf its recent competition, but I'd be remiss if I didn't report that I've grown a little weary of big-screen adolescence, and for all its attempts at putting on a fresh face, Perks can't entirely shake a feeling of familiarity. That may not (and probably shouldn't) breed contempt, but it could make you wonder whether American movies ever will graduate from high school.