DEAR EVAN HANSEN MOVIE RANT
So the news dropped today that Danny Pino will be playing Connor and Zoe’s Stepfather in the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. It’s a big change from the original play wherein Larry Murphy was Connor and Zoe’s biological father. And as excited as I am to see Amy Adams and Danny Pino opposite each other, I do have some issues with it.
First of all, this will likely go one of two ways, and I don’t like either of them if I’m being honest:
Possibility #1:
This new stepfather character will absorb Larry Murphy’s arc and Larry Murphy/the biological father will be mostly if not entirely absent for the film.
I like this possibility better, because I‘ve seen tons of Danny Pino’s work and he deserves a chance to shine. Larry, Alana, and Jared are already the three smallest parts of the original play (yet those are the only parts so far that they chose to cast as actors of colour...?) so it would be nice if they kept a significant arc for this new Larry.
What I don’t like is what this would mean for the story and the characters. A big part of why I loved the original play is that the Murphy family didn’t have some huge trauma to cause Connor’s behaviour. He grew up with two parents and a little sister in a stable(ish) home, yet still had anger issues and a troubled childhood. We’ve seen countless movies and books where children of separated parents act out, and I’m afraid that people will now assume that the root cause of Connor’s behaviour is the fact that his parents separated and his biological father isn’t around (they better not throw in a “You’re not even my real dad!” moment with the stepfather or I quit entirely). By having Connor’s parents still together in the original play it showed that mental illness doesn’t always have an “explanation” or a “cause”. How many movies have already been made where the dismissive explanation for a “troubled kid” is divorced parents?
Also, this completely changes the Dad’s arc by having Connor not be his biological son. They’re making the reason for his and Connor’s distance the fact that he’s not Connor’s biological father, which is a trope we’ve seen countless times and is another damaging image for stepparents.
What I’m trying to say is if they take the story this way, it will be less original than the source material and portraying stereotypes for both children of divorce and stepparents.
Possibility #2:
Larry Murphy still exists and maintains his original arc, and the stepfather is just an additional side character.
This possibility is haunting me right now. I don’t even know if I could handle this. I honestly don’t know if I can talk about this one.
So the gist of this theory is that Cynthia Murphy divorced from Larry and remarried this new stepfather character. However, after Connor’s death Larry returns and him and Cynthia reconnect as he struggles with having been distant with Connor and hard on him much like in the original play.
If this ends up being the case, why make this new stepfather character just to push them aside with little to no arc...? Like usual, it has me thinking that this casting was just to score diversity points. They cast a Latino actor as “The Stepfather” just to make him a flat character and give the entire father arc to some other white guy. And he’s not Zoe and Connor’s biological father so they don’t even have to cast Latinx actors in the other (bigger) roles.
Can you imagine how incredible it would’ve been to see Larry, Connor, and Zoe played by Latinx actors?
All this to say, I don’t understand why they made this change. Larry’s arc in the play was original and compelling. I love Danny Pino, and I want to see him have a fully fleshed-out character with a great arc but I just don’t think there’s any possible outcome of this change that I’d like better than the original story.
Well I was half right, they did have a “you’re not my real dad” moment but it was the mom saying “he wasn’t yours” despite the fact Larry raised him.
After seeing the film I can conclusively say the change of making Larry a stepfather was unnecessary. I assume it was just to add an additional bond between Zoe and Evan because both of them lost their dads?
That line where Evan was like “he was lucky to have a step… a dad like you”. I figure some people liked that but I did not. And the principal saying “Connor Murphy’s mother and Stepfather are here to see you”- why. Why? Just say “parents” I beg you.
I am however very relieved they didn’t go the route of saying Connor’s problems stemmed from the fact he didn’t have his biological father around growing up. That would’ve been too far.
I also liked them saying that Larry and Connor were close when he was young, so that their distance was something that started later, not caused by the fact he was a stepfather. I still am not entirely sure why this change was made, there’s things I liked with this Larry and things I thought they did better the first time. But overall I just feel like the change was not necessary.
