Ben Platt breaks hearts in first trailer for iconic musical Dear Evan Hansen

Dear Evan Hansen trailer

The first trailer for the star-studded film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen has just dropped.

The Tony-award winning musical debuted on Broadway in 2016, soon becoming hugely popular and especially beloved by queer audiences.

The film version of the musical, from Universal, is set for release in September, 2021, with Ben Platt reprising his award-winning turn as Evan Hansen.

Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a teenager with a social anxiety disorder who yearns for connection with his peers, so much so that he pretends to have been the best friend of a student who died by suicide in an effort to become closer to his family.

The heart-wrenching trailer, dropped by Universal on Tuesday (18 May), moved fans to tears, with one writing on Twitter: “Dear Evan Hansen is one of my favorite Broadway musicals of all time! This is gonna emotionally destroy me, the trailer had me explode into tears! They got the perfect cast for this movie.”

“Made a mistake and watched the Dear Evan Hansen trailer,” tweeted another.

“Now I have to stop crying before giving a big presentation in a few minutes. Wish me luck.”

A YouTube commenter added: “Dear Evan Hansen has the potential to save a lot of lives and comes at a time when a lot of people need to hear that they are not alone.

“You are not alone. Please never feel like you are. Please never feel like you can’t reach out. Thank you for this.

“If I’m already crying watching the trailer then I’m gonna be a puddle of a mess during the actual full movie.”

The musical film is directed by Stephen Chbosky, writer and director of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and also stars Julianne Moore as Evan’s mother Heidi Hansen, Colton Ryan as Connor Murphy, the teen who Evan pretends to have been friends with, and Amy Adams as Cynthia Murphy, his mother.