I know I'm rather late to the party, but today I finally watched Dear Evan Hansen. I'd heard of it before many times, and Owl City's cover of "Waving Through A Window" is fantastic, but I didn't have an opportunity to see it in person - and I avoid listening to a musical's score before actually watching the show. Now, the show still isn't here in Sydney - but the movie is finally out on Netflix. Of course, it's a bit different to the musical, in multiple ways. But it certainly resonated with me, so I wanted to write down some of my thoughts.
While it's never specifically mentioned (though depression and anxiety are), it feels obvious that Evan (and I'd say also Connor, most likely) is autistic. Though I didn't have the same experience as Evan in high school exactly - I did have a group of friends - my group was the "out" group, as such. I certainly felt that loneliness, that feeling of never being noticed, or feeling like I wouldn't make an impact. And feeling like I could definitely never ever have a conversation with that girl I liked? Yep, that was a thing. Again, not to the level that we see with Evan - but much of how Evan's story started resonated with me.
Interestingly, much of the end of the story resonates with me as well - learning the value of honesty and openness, even though it's challenging. Evan posting his confession online, and then just putting his phone away, reminds me of when I came out online. That day I just turned my phone off, and I went bushwalking with some friends. I knew that there were people that were going to have very strong opinions, and very negative opinions, about that. Or perhaps it was more separating from my (at the time) wife that was the issue. I remember feeling a similar gut-wrench around when I was first starting to talk to people about looking at porn. I have a very different view on it now, but at the time, I very much held the traditional Christian view of it being quite sinful etc, and so was very much hiding it and feeling great shame and such around it. But I've talked about that at length in other places and at other times.
And that freedom and new confidence that he seems to be able to find then as well - I think that's something that I've been able to experience myself too, as I've lived more openly as myself, and been less tied down to lies or to acts or to being something I'm not. I still have challenges, fuck yes I do. But I'm able to face them much better than I used to. And some things that used to be challenges, just aren't challenges in that way any more.
On a more serious note - I've also been to that place of depression. While it doesn't plague me now as it has previously (in thanks partly to medication, and partly to a great support network), and I've never tried to take my life, I've gotten to the point of figuring out how I would do it. (Generalities, not specifics.) Sometimes you can point to this or that as the reason behind something, the cause of mood or energy being low; but sometimes, your brain just isn't working right. It's not your fault, it's not anything that's necessarily happened, it just goes weird sometimes. So figuring out how to work through that, or finding ways to not get to that really low state, are really important for people that do struggle with this.
On a less heavy note, I did quite enjoy the music. And, as usual, the romantic part of my brain got swept up in the romantic subplot pretty strongly. sighs Even when I do have someone/people that I'm in relationship with, there's still a longing and yearning there when I'm alone, which is difficult to know if it will ever feel filled. My heart - or my brain - has a difficult tendency of developing rather strong feelings for many more people than I have the time or energy for. (And also seems to have a tendency of developing feelings for people who don't have much time or energy in the first place. But that's its own thing.)
Stories do a good job at making me feel pretty emotional. I think that's why I fell in love with them growing up - first in books, but these days more often in movies, or theatre, or shows. I think it's also why telling stories is something I often try to do in a lot of what I create. But it's also something that I need to be aware of, so that that emotion doesn't carry me away too far into making rash decisions and the like. It can be quite good, though, for just that catharsis. That's something I get from stories quite a bit.
I rather liked this movie/musical. This post wasn't really meant to be a review as such, and isn't really formatted like my typical reviews. But hey, I'll chuck in that thought there for free.
