Michael L. Messing

The dialogue and the social millier is very dated and cliche. However, the performances are strong especially from Barbara Stanwyck who demonstrates a sincere emotional performance.

Sweet accounting of friendships, love, aging, the search for meaning, ambition, crises, and more. Great acting, sharp humor, however contrived some of the scenarios unfold.

I went to the movie because the Broadway show was treated as a revelation and loved by the critics and friends. I tried to stay focused on the characters as representative of real people in real difficult circumstances. However, the songs were trite, they didn't add anything to move the story forward, and were distracting from the story line. While I did feel empathy and true sadness as a result of the great acting skills of some of the main characters, particularly Platt, Adams, and Pino, I was quite disturbed that the plots' apparent intent is to elicit support, empathy, and validation for Evan as some sort of "hero", lauded and admired for conspiring to deceive the dead student's family, and everyone else, with the lie about his friendship with Connor and the made up events of their relationship. Empathy and understanding for Evan's social anxiety and emotional pain and the needs of teenagers to feel loved and accepted are valid, but not at the expense of others tragedies. This movie plot and production is misconceived, poorly written and would have been better constructed without the musical distractions and gratuitous attempt to let Evan get away with the grand painful scheem that ultimately failed at its goal. One star for good performances. No stars for anything else.