Dear Evan Hansen

As the film version of Cats demonstrated, not all successful stage musicals are fit for big-screen translation. Dear Evan Hansen further validates that theory.

By downplaying the musical numbers in favor of melodramatic contrivances, this adaptation of the Tony-winning production exposes a somewhat shallow and trivial perspective on mental health and teen suicide.

Stammering, hunched over, and painfully shy, Evan (Ben Platt) is ostracized by his peers while relying on a bottle of antidepressants to get him through most days. He doesn’t receive much support at home, since his single mother (Julianne Moore) is a workaholic nurse.

The fragile dynamics of high school social circles are intensified in the social media age, although Evan’s anxiety extends beyond neuroses or insecurities almost into a crippling inability to function.

His opportunity for acceptance comes at a cost following the suicide of Connor, an unstable classmate. Evan winds up befriending Connor’s mother (Amy Adams), thanks to a coincidence that links the two as acquaintances. Connor’s skeptical younger sister (Kaitlyn Dever) eventually finds Evan to be a comforting presence, too.

Happy to perpetuate the falsehoods about their supposed friendship, if only he can keep his story straight, Evan becomes popular in the hallways after he joins forces with a social butterfly (Amandla Stenberg) with some hidden issues of her own.

Platt, the only cast member to return from the stage incarnation, looks far too old to be playing a teenager, which distracts from the more heartfelt elements of his portrayal.

Visually, the material is freed from its stagebound roots by director Stephen Chbosky (Wonder), who previously explored adolescent angst with more subtlety and complexity in The Perks of a Teenage Wallflower.

However, in giving the story a layer of realistic grounding, the screenplay by Steven Levenson — adapting his own play — inadvertently turns Evan into a target for pity rather than sympathy, and his transformation doesn’t ring true.

The film attempts to spotlight outsiders who exist in the shadows at school and at home, confronting a worthwhile and widespread issue. Yet even if it means well, Dear Evan Hansen lacks the emotional depth to provide fresh or meaningful insight about issues such as depression, pharmaceuticals, self-esteem, and social anxiety.

As it strains to be a life-affirming and profound glimpse into grief and healing, the film stumbles in offering a sincerely bittersweet catharsis.

Rated PG-13, 137 minutes.