The cast also includes Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Nik Dodani, Colton Ryan, Danny Pino, Julianne Moore, and Amy Adams.

Criticism was also aimed at its direction, screenplay, visual style, lack of faithfulness to its source material, and portrayal of mental illness, though the supporting cast's performances received some praise.

[10] Stephen Chbosky explained that the film's main goal was to capture and immortalize Platt's performance, saying that "His understanding of the character is so complete and so profound.

[20] It was shot in Los Angeles and Atlanta, with primary filming with the main cast taking place in September and expected to end around Thanksgiving.

[29] Nine musical numbers were removed for the film, including "Anybody Have a Map", "Disappear", "To Break in a Glove", and "Good for You", along with the reprises of "Waving Through a Window", "Sincerely Me", "For Forever", and "You Will Be Found".

Material involving Evan seeing visions of Connor telling him to push forward with the lies and keep his memory alive were also cut.

[32] Chbosky admitted to changing the screenplay in order to narrate the story from Evan's perspective as part of the goal to capture Ben Platt's performance, which led to the songs being excluded.

The covers were performed by popular artists, such as Sam Smith, SZA, Summer Walker, Carrie Underwood, Dan + Shay, Finneas O'Connell and Tori Kelly.

[36] Upon the announcement of its premiere, TIFF's co-head and artistic director Cameron Bailey remarked “There was no question that Dear Evan Hansen was the ideal film to launch the festival this year ...

We couldn't think of a more important idea to celebrate this year as we come together once again to share the power and joy of cinema in theaters together.”[37] It held its Los Angeles premiere at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on September 22, 2021, and its Japanese premiere on November 8, 2021, as the closing night film of the 2021 Tokyo International Film Festival.

[40][41] An early screening with a preceding live Q&A with the cast, presented by Fathom Events, took place in select theaters across the United States on September 23, 2021.

[45] It was made available on premium video-on-demand platforms on November 23, 2021,[46] and released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 7, 2021, by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment/Studio Distribution Services.

[11] The appearance of the character of Evan Hansen was met with criticism, with viewers commenting that Platt, at age 27, looked too old to play a teenager.

[48] Four houseguests in the Big Brother 23 house saw an early screening, even before the world premiere, as a reward for winning the 'Power of Veto' competition; that episode aired on CBS on September 1, 2021.

[51] Additionally, Platt performed "You Will Be Found" on NBC's America's Got Talent the same day, as well as "Waving Through a Window" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on September 15, 2021, to promote the film.

The critics consensus reads, "Dear Evan Hansen does a fair job of capturing the emotion of its source material, but it's undermined by questionable casting and a story that's hard to swallow.

[66][67][68] Explained David Fear of Rolling Stone, "there are enough of these goosebump-inducing, epiphanic moments courtesy of the actor that you see why people might love this film as well as cringe at it.

"[69] Platt's acting was enjoyed by Peter Debruge of Variety, but disliked the choice to cast "actors born the previous century" as high school students.

He joked, "When he gets up onstage for the second act's big musical number, I wasn't sure if he was going to memorialize his dead classmate or speak on the importance of 401(k) matching.

[72][73] Debruge was critical of the plotting, but gave the production crew credit for at least making some adjustments to the stage show's book, if not as many as would be desired.

[75][76] Adrian Horton of The Guardian, referring to Platt's presentation as a teenager, and the film's treatment of mental health, stated, "The movie asks the audience to not look at two elephants in the room, and unfortunately, no amount of soaring music can relieve that heavy a burden.

"[68] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Chbosky "needed to make Dear Evan Hansen less grandiose.

[77] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said about Chbosky's direction, "Dear Evan Hansen preserves many of the selling points of its stage incarnation.

[62][81] Nate Jones of Vulture labeled it "distressing, messy, full of psychological manipulation and passive aggression",[71][82] and Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times lamented that it "turns villain into victim and grief into an exploitable vulnerability".

[84] /Film's Josh Spiegel also panned the social issues portrayed as stuck in the early 2010s, which were "untimely", "ungainly", and "excruciatingly awkward" around the time of the film's release.

[85] In 2024, Collider ranked it number 5 on its list of the "10 Worst Movie Musicals of All Time," writing that the film "strips away nearly everything that made the original so successful, removing its stage-dependent visual style and bafflingly recasting Ben Platt to play Evan Hansen despite him being over 25 years old.

[2] Alex Wood of WhatsOnStage concluded in his review, "Spectators will likely land on one of three outcomes: it's either passably interesting (though overly long), rousingly novel or terrifyingly awful – all depending on whether or not you can empathise with Evan's so-called plight.

"[88] Relish Mix, a company that tracks reactions on social media, rated the online response to the film at 5.5 out of 10, and said there were a wide range of conversations: "from joyous praise of the power of the theme coming from the Broadway play as a post-pandemic story of hope and inspiration" to less positive remarks which were critical of the casting of 27-year-old Ben Platt as a high school student.

Jameson Rich of The New York Times observed "The image of a crying Platt is already a much-iterated joke, and its thrust is, overwhelmingly, derisive.

(On Broadway, Dear Evan Hansen balanced on a thin line between tragic morality play and light coming-of-age story, but the adaptation is a tonal pileup — “A Very Special Episode: The Musical: The Movie.”) But being the target of the internet's scorn is not de facto a bad thing.