The New York Times’ “Cringeworthy” Review of “Dear Evan Hansen”

The New York Times’ Jeanette Catsoulis is not a big fan of the film Dear Evan Hansen. She’s not alone there. Others have grumbled that the 28-year-old Ben Platt is a bit long in the tooth to be playing a high schooler who hasn’t been left back at least ten times. But that incomparable voice of Platt! Who’d want to miss out on that?

And to be able to see the actor who created a major role on stage recreate it on screen does carry some resonance. Who wouldn’t saw off their left pinky to see Ethel Merman belt out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” in Mervyn LeRoy’s Gypsy (1962) as opposed to Rosalind Russell’s slightly more phlegmatic take?

Yes, the screen can be unforgiving when it comes to hiding age, although Jesse Royce Landis played Cary Grant’s mother in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, and she was less than eight years older. Lucille Ball apparently was shot through heavy gauze for Mame, and who can forget Robert DeNiro’s non-Botoxed youth-enizing in The Irishman?