Dear Evan Hansen (2021) review

Crippled by anxiety and depression, high school senior Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) ends up in quite a fiasco when a letter he addressed to himself - as a part of his therapy - winds up in the pocket of violent and unlikeable classmate Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan) who takes his own life; when Connor's parents (Danny Pino and Amy Adams) find the letter on his person, they assume they were best friends, and Evan goes along with the lie.  It seems like audiences are all too eager to slap around this big screen adaptation of the much-beloved musical by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and while they'd be right in parts (Platt is unfortunately too old to play the role, alterations to the story are kind of misguided), the fact is that the important points from the musical, about mental health awareness and self-acceptance, are still relevant and haven't (quite) been lost in translation.  The hypocrisy of the student body in mourning a classmate they never liked is keenly observed, and the side character of Alana Beck (Amandla Stenberg) is interesting in how she's the "extroverted and over-achieving" alternative variation of Hansen who, instead of retreating within herself the way he does, takes on many projects to try to confront her own emotional issues.  Still, the sappiness can be overwhelming and this isn't the best version they could have come up with ... and why did they drop "To Break in a Glove" from the soundtrack?