Oh Dear, this stage hit’s become a film flop

DEAR Evan Hansen (★★✩✩✩ 12A, 137 mins) is the film version of the hit stage musical about a troubled high school kid, Evan (Ben Platt), crippled with shyness and anxiety, forced to sustain the pretence that he was the best friend of a classmate who committed suicide.

The situation springs from the letters he writes to himself by way of therapy, one of which is found by the dead classmate’s mother (Amy Adams). She thinks her son wrote it, and so the misunderstanding develops.

Hats off for the idea of trying to address teenage mental health issues through the medium of a musical, but by the end of this overlong film I felt like I’d waded waisthigh through treacle. It is slickly done, and a fine cast includes Julianne Moore as Evan’s single mum. But there are reasons why the film has bombed in the U.S. and I can’t disagree with any of them.

Best Sellers (★★✩✩✩ 15, 102 mins) tries just as hard, and fails even more dismally, to yank the heartstrings. It stars Michael Caine as Harris, an ancient, cantankerous author who, 50 years after he wrote his only novel, a big bestseller, is tempted away from his reclusive existence to save a venerable publishing house run by his old editor’s daughter, Lucy (Aubrey Plaza).

The pair then go on a tour to promote his new book, and I think we are meant to find their relationship by turns funny and moving. In fact it’s neither, largely because it isn’t remotely believable. Off the top of my head I could name 20 better odd-couple generation-gap movies. That said, it’s always nice to see Caine, who first said he was retiring and then that he wasn’t. Either way, we should probably cherish him while we can.

The Boss Baby 2: Family Business (★★✩✩✩ PG, 107 mins) is a sequel to The Boss Baby, the 2017 animation which gave a baby (voiced by Alec Baldwin) a business suit and a briefcase, and was great fun. Baldwin’s back for this one but, alas, it entirely lacks the charm of the original.

■ Best sellers is on streaming platforms; the other two are in cinemas.