The film was produced in the fall of 2021 during its limited run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City, as part of the efforts to slowly reopen Broadway in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, with this being the first musical to begin performances near the end of the shutdown.

The film features the cast of this remounting, which includes Bareilles (who also serves as a producer), Charity Angél Dawson, Caitlin Houlahan, Drew Gehling, Dakin Matthews, Eric Anderson, Joe Tippett, and Christopher Fitzgerald.

It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 12, 2023 and was theatrically released in the United States on December 7, 2023 by Bleecker Street in collaboration with Fathom Events.

She begins another day at the diner with her boss Cal and fellow waitresses Becky and Dawn ("Opening Up").

At her OB/GYN's office, Jenna is taunted by other pregnant women ("Club Knocked Up") and meets Dr. James "Jim" Pomatter, a new doctor from Connecticut.

He tells her he loved the Mermaid Marshmallow pie, saying it could "win contests and ribbons and things" ("It Only Takes a Taste").

Jenna tells Dawn and Becky of her plan to enter the pie contest; if she wins, she will use the prize money to leave Earl and raise the baby herself.

Jenna and Dr. Pomatter continue their affair, as do Becky and Cal; Dawn and Ogie begin their relationship ("Bad Idea (Reprise)").

Earl, Becky and Dawn, and even Dr. Pomatter's wife, who is a resident at the hospital, crowd the delivery room.

Following the closure of the original Broadway production on January 5, 2020 at the Lena Horne Theatre, the theater district shut down for a year and a half due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response, producer Barry Weissler announced that a remount of the original production, starring Bareilles, would open following the reopening of Broadway theaters.

[11] The show returned in a limited engagement on September 2, 2021 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, making it the first musical on Broadway to begin performances following the COVID-19 shutdown.

[12] The primary reason for its return was to record the production for a future public release, with Steam Motion and Sound producing the film.

Several returning cast members star in the production, including Bareilles as Jenna, Gehling as Dr. Pomatter, Tippett as Earl, Dawson as Becky, Houlahan as Dawn, Matthews as Joe, Fitzgerald as Ogie, and Anderson as Cal.

[19] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.