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| I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? | |
| Posted by: broadwaybacker 09:18 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| To me, the entire "controversy" about Ben Platt looking too old for the role of Evan is complete BS, and is the product of something called confirmation bias. Essentially, people who know how old he is (28), and/or have read articles about him looking too old go into the film with something called confirmation bias. They "expect" him to look too old, so he does. But at least in my view, he doesn't. First, he doesn't look significantly older than many of the other of the "kids" in his school, at least as depicted in the film. I actually thought he looked younger than Connor (Colton Ryan, who is 26.) I've coached college teams for the last several years, so I've spent hours and hours around college age kids 18-22 and I can tell you that he looks older than some, younger than some, and would fit right in on a college campus. looking like he does in the film. I also work on criminal cases, and there are few things less reliable than eyewitness reports of someone's estimated age. I've seen reports of suspects being described as being 28-30 when they turn out to be 22, and vice versa. I'd love to do an experiment (not that I can). I'd love to show the film to people who know nothing in advance about Ben Platt or the age issue, and then ask them to estimate his age. I'd virtually guarantee that estimates would be all over the place, most ranging from 17 to 25 or so. I'd also predict that there'd be a statistically significant difference in those estimates depending on the age of the viewer. Seeing the film also reminded me of how Evan really got sucked into the lie. His first response, when Connor's parents confronted him with the letter was to say that he didn't write it. And then what happened immediately thereafter? Zoe went off on her dead brother in front of her parents, lambasting Connor as a bad person, a horrible person. Evan sits there watching the grief stricken parents react to that attack. and empathy takes over. He was so uncomfortable that he felt the need to do something, anything, to lessen the pain of Connor's parents, so he tells them that indeed, Connor was his friend. Do things spiral out of control from there, and was he largely responsible? Of course. |
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| re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? | |
| Posted by: SUBRCCS 07:41 pm EDT 10/12/21 | |
| In reply to: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - broadwaybacker 09:18 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| For what it's worth....I teach high school.....I saw the movie yesterday.....I don't think Mr. Platt would look out of place (age wise) at my high school looking the way he did in the movie. I went in expecting him to look too old, but he did not. | |
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| re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? | |
| Posted by: MockingbirdGirl 01:01 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
| In reply to: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - broadwaybacker 09:18 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| Essentially, people who know how old he is (28), and/or have read articles about him looking too old go into the film with something called confirmation bias. They "expect" him to look too old, so he does. While that might be true in some cases, the criticism of his age began when the trailer dropped—and quite a lot of it from people who didn't know his age and hadn't read articles but simply watched the trailer. That's not "confirmation bias"; that's people reacting to what they see. Of course, Platt then made an ill-judged (and subsequently deleted) Tweet about "randos being jerks about age," which had the inevitable effect of increasing critical coverage and making it all about his age. Certainly an unfortunate decision. |
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| re: What are "randos"? | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 01:55 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - MockingbirdGirl 01:01 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
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| I suppose it's clear that I don't Tweet! | |
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| It's a slang variation of "random" - i.e "random people," whose opinions don't matter (nm) | |
| Last Edit: earlybird 03:35 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
| Posted by: earlybird 03:35 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: What are "randos"? - keikekaze 01:55 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
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| nm | |
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| re: What are "randos"? | |
| Posted by: dbdbdb 01:57 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
| In reply to: re: What are "randos"? - keikekaze 01:55 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
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| According to an online dictionary: "A person one does not know, especially one regarded as odd, suspicious, or engaging in socially inappropriate behavior." | |
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| Thank you, both above.--n/m | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 01:43 pm EDT 10/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: What are "randos"? - dbdbdb 01:57 pm EDT 10/10/21 | |
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| n/m | |
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| Regarding your confirmation bias theory... | |
| Posted by: earlybird 10:33 am EDT 10/10/21 | |
| In reply to: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - broadwaybacker 09:18 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| Sorry, but no. Not only did I actually think he looked too old - I actually thought he looked older than he really was. He was like 26 or something when they filmed? He looked 35 to me. It's not that 26-year-olds can't play teenagers believably. But not every 26-year-old can do it. Some just naturally look older. And they things they did to make him look younger had the reverse effect. It's not his fault that he looked too old, but it's his and father's fault that they didn't have the self-awareness to realize it wouldn't work, and that they needed to cast someone younger. Every single shot of Ben Platt in the movie made me cringe, worsened by the fact that his performance was one of the most appallingly terrible pieces of acting I've ever seen onscreen. You're allowed to have a different opinion without trying to invalidate or undercut other people's opinions. I'm glad you enjoyed the movie! I wish I had. I enjoyed the show when it was Off-Broadway (never saw it on Broadway). |
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| re: Regarding your confirmation bias theory... | |
| Posted by: TheOtherOne 11:40 am EDT 10/11/21 | |
| In reply to: Regarding your confirmation bias theory... - earlybird 10:33 am EDT 10/10/21 | |
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| I honestly didn't think he looked too old in the film, but I agree about the quality of his performance. I assume you saw him in the show off-Broadway, unless you saw an understudy. Did you find his work significantly different in the film or was it just a case of that which worked on stage not working on film? To me it seemed like a passive/aggressive version of emoting. Internalized but still too much. I had liked the show very much on stage but with a different actor as Evan. |
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| re: Regarding your confirmation bias theory... | |
| Posted by: earlybird 10:07 pm EDT 10/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Regarding your confirmation bias theory... - TheOtherOne 11:40 am EDT 10/11/21 | |
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| I did see him Off-Broadway. I think it was mostly an issue of not adjusting for the medium, or adjusting to the actors around him. | |
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| re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? | |
| Last Edit: AnyaS 03:09 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
| Posted by: AnyaS 03:09 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
| In reply to: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - broadwaybacker 09:18 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| Doesn't Connor's mom essentially beg him to tell her something/anything about her son? I never understood when some viewers described his character's actions as being completely self-serving. I really thought, tho I could be misremembering, that in the stage version and movie, the mother desperately pleaded with Evan to give her something to hold on to, and being the people pleaser he is, he then makes up the events in the For Forever song. | |
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| re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? | |
| Posted by: broadwaybacker 04:51 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - AnyaS 03:09 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| You are correct if I remember the sequence. Essentially, she asks Evan to do that (after Evan says he didn’t write the letter), and then Zoe goes completely off on her brother, telling her parents that her brother was simply a bad person with no redeeming qualities. Evan sees how devastated they are, and in an attempt to lesson their pain, he starts to make things up and sings For Forever. His motives at that point were completely pure. Clearly, it spirals out of control, Evan begins to benefit from the lies as he achieves notoriety, and the writers do a good job creating moral ambiguity in the character, which according to what they said subsequently was intentional. | |
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| re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? | |
| Posted by: mikem 05:40 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
| In reply to: re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - broadwaybacker 04:51 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| I think the emphases and beats may be slightly different from performance to performance, but when I saw the show in Broadway previews, after Zoe said that Connor was a bad person, her parents started rapidly escalating on each other, essentially blaming the other for what Connor was like. The temperature rose very rapidly, and Evan jumped in with something like, "I remember lots of nice things about Connor" to prevent a full-blown war. Platt portrayed it as he says it very impulsively to de-escalate the situation, and I thought there was a little bit of an undercurrent that maybe this wasn't the first time he felt responsible for making the adults stop fighting. Right after he said it, in the moment when they stopped fighting and looked at him, Platt had this look on his face of "Uh oh, what did I do" as he realizes that now he has jumped into it with both feet and has to follow through. I think Platt did a great job of showing how Evan got himself into a mess with good intentions, both in this scene and in the scene in the principal's office where he tries to explain that Connor wasn't the intended recipient of the letter but stops explaining when he sees how much the Murphys want the letter to be from Connor. I think the Murphy parents are pretty devastated in the principal's office. The rest of the cast also did a great job in those scenes. Later, Evan is more calculated about the lying, but in the beginning, he means well. |
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| re: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? | |
| Posted by: huskyital (huskyital@yahoo.com) 02:10 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
| In reply to: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - broadwaybacker 09:18 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| I agree completely with you and even my sister who never saw the play realized that you feel sorry for him because he is cornered at that point and he is the type of person who wants to please people to be liked. Usually critics don’t mention a man’s looks on the screen but this time their castigating against him is I feel very unfair. In the film anyway at the end everybody seems to be better for this whole misunderstanding. | |
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| I think he looked older in the trailer | |
| Posted by: dramedy 10:38 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
| In reply to: I saw the DEH film. And now I'm...angry? - broadwaybacker 09:18 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| Than in the movie. Plus he let his hair grow out more than on stage which was a different look than on stage. But note that this is high school and your low end of age is 17-25 and not 15-19 that is high school. But I’m glad to see the the tony winner get the movie role. As for Colton Ryan, he is one hot weed smoker. |
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| re: I think he looked older in the trailer | |
| Posted by: TheOtherOne 12:39 pm EDT 10/09/21 | |
| In reply to: I think he looked older in the trailer - dramedy 10:38 am EDT 10/09/21 | |
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| My problems with the movie are not at all about his age and I agree that a mountain has been made out of a molehill on this topic. He looked about the same age as most people playing teenagers on television. I did notice that when the camera caught his profile he suddenly looked a lot older, which I guess is why he is rarely photographed from the sides. | |
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