Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Dear Evan Hansen Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 4, 2021

Director Stephen Chbosky's (The Perks of Being Wallflower, Wonder) Dear Evan Hansen is based on the Tony Award-winning stage play of the same name and the book adaptation written by Steven Levenson, who also penned this film's screenplay. A story of despair, loss, hopelessness, and hope in a contemporary high school setting, Dear Evan Hansen explores the worlds of anxiety, depression, suicide, and the darkest human mental recesses through music and keen observations of the human condition.

Evan Hansen (Ben Platt, who also played the part on stage), is by his own description “weird, anxious, and depressed.” He has no friends. He wants to be himself, but "himself" is a friendless, weird, anxious, and depressed teenager. He's trying to right his own internal ship by giving himself digital pep talks, by writing down some positive thoughts as to why any particular day will be a good one. When he has a particularly bad day at school, he takes the time to amend his letter into a lament. When another loner, Connor (Colton Ryan), who had previously that day disparaged Evan, takes the letter off the printer, Evan spirals into a state of practically paralyzing fear. He waits for the letter to be posted online, to further humiliate him, but a few days later he is approached by Connor's parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) who produce the letter and believe it was written by their son, to Evan, and wish to know more about their relationship because Connor has recently committed suicide. Try as he might to set the record straight, Evan finds no opportunity to do so and, seeing their grief, decides to go along and build the façade of a relationship to satisfy their wish to know more about their son. Evan also finds himself with an opportunity to be closer to Connor's sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) on whom he has a crush. Can Evan find purpose in life through a lie, or will the charade cause an already fragile ecosystem to completely crumble around him?

The story offers keen insight into the human psyche, insight which is partly born of one’s natural makeup and partly born in how those innate, inherent characteristics are molded and shaped and bent and maybe even broken by circumstances. In other words, how does a frail individual fit into a society into which there is little tolerance, never mind a real place, for a frail individual? Evan daily finds himself in an alien world with only his mind’s own safe space to protect him, a safe space which is violated every time he’s forced to interact with others, i.e. every day. Of course things are only made all the more difficult when he’s thrust into the middle of a unique situation that may prove to be a way out, or a path to a darker place within. Therein lies the movie’s interest: watching the character grow and shrivel alike from the inside out.

Platt does a wonderful job of inhabiting and exploring the character, as the world influences his actions and as his own essence guides his response. It's a layered and nuanced performance that will leave the audience interacting with his pain and anxiety as he wears them on his sleeve but does so from a place of genuine human hurt and fear and doubt. And it should be a practiced, nuanced performance because Platt has lived the story for years on stage and now on screen. He's surrounded by a number of solid performances, particularly from Amy Adams and Julianne Moore, both exceptional as always in key roles in Evan's life. Technically the film is rather nondescript, but Chbosky rightly steps away and allows the character and the story to dominate rather than attempt to overwhelm the story with unnecessary cinematic bravado.

Dear Evan Hansen Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Universal brings Dear Evan Hansen to Blu-ray with a fundamentally solid 1080p transfer. The picture hits the usual high points for a good looking, contemporarily captured, digital image. The picture is clean and efficient. It's never lacking crispness or wanting for more detail. The picture reveals environments, from high dollar homes to school hallways, from various natural exteriors to bedrooms, with practically impeccable definition and detail. Likewise, faces are tack-sharp and wonderfully revealing throughout, capturing skin details, makeup, hairs, and other characteristics with faultless definition. The picture reveals expert color reproduction, offering bright, bold primaries that are well saturated and hold to a neutral contrast. Black levels are solid, whites are crisp, skin tones are excellent, and the entire palette is dialed into, practically, perfection. The image is free of any serious source blemishes, like noise, and the encode is free of any troubling artifacts, like macroblocking. This is an A-grade Blu-ray image from Universal.

Dear Evan Hansen Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dear Evan Hansen's Dolby Atmos soundtrack carries the film's musical numbers with delightful detail. The instrumentals are exceptionally clear and very widely engaging, offering both front side stretch as well as engaged and balanced surround activity. The height channels are not used discretely here, or elsewhere really for that matter, but the sense of seamless stage saturation within its musical bubble is very welcome. Lyrics are likewise clear and center focused, as is dialogue a product of the center channel while holding solid clarity and prioritization. The track offers some decent environmental fill, notably in school hallways and other busy locales, but these are never prominent effects, content to linger about to create an authentic background fill din.

Dear Evan Hansen Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Dear Evan Hansen includes four featurettes. A DVD copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover.

• Songs To Be Seen (1080p, 43:17): Exploring the thematic meaning behind many of the film's songs. Included are Waving Through a Window; For Forever; Sincerely Me; Requiem; If I Could Tell Her; Anonymous Ones; You Will Be Found; Only Us; Words Fail; So Big, So Small; and A Little Closer.
• Looking Through the Lens: The Making of Dear Evan Hansen (1080p, 8:36): Adapting the stage show for film, cast and performances, music and lyrics, choreography, and more.
• Sincerely, Ben Platt (1080p, 4:57): Ben Platt's performance in the film.
• Stars In our Eyes (1080p, 3:06): Making the movie during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dear Evan Hansen Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dear Evan Hansen teeters on the verge of something special. It offers genuine characterization and an interesting plot, supported by a handful of solid performances, even if some of them are necessarily a bit quirky. Universal's Blu-ray is very good, delivering high yield video and audio in addition to a handful of worthwhile extras. Recommended.