“Dear Evan Hansen” was first introduced to Broadway in November of 2016. Now, almost five years later, the show was brought to movie theaters as a live action due to its tremendous amount of success on Broadway. Even though the Broadway show was a big hit, the film on the other hand was not the most popular amongst fans of the original show. 

The story follows Evan Hansen; a lonely, highschool student who’s desperate for a friend and is just trying to get through high school with his head down. However, his life took a turn for the worse when a letter he wrote to himself got into the Murphy family’s hands. Connor Murphy, the son of the family, took his life, and his grieving family believed that Evan’s letter to himself was written by Connor before he passed because of the fact that it was addressed “Dear Evan Hansen,” As the story goes on viewers see Evan create this lie that he and Connor were actually best friends before he passed away, going as far as creating fake messages between him and Connor months before his death. The deeper he falls into the lies, the deeper his newfound love for Connor’s sister grows. Eventually all of Evan’s lies and mistakes catch up to him and he’s left with the decision to either admit all of his lies to the Murphy family, or to keep the truth to himself and let his mistakes affect the Murphys for the worse. 

Not only has the plot of the film been critiqued because of the odd storyline, but it is also getting judgement for the questionable casting choices. For example, Ben Platt starred in the original  broadway show of “Dear Evan Hansen” when he was twenty-three. Now, five years later Platt is starring in the film version of the show. Fans of the show are disappointed with Platt being casted as Evan Hansen for countless reasons. The main reason being that Ben Platt is 27-years-old playing someone ten years younger than him. To make matters worse, makeup artists on the set caked on layers upon layers of makeup on him in an attempt to make him appear younger. Though it did not work it just made him look even older. 

Despite the amazing cast and obvious vocal talent present in the film, in the end it’s painfully obvious to all “Dear Evan Hansen” fans that maybe the show should have stayed on Broadway and not made an appearance on the big screen.