★★★☆☆
Some regrets never fade—they just grow quieter.
Colleen Hoover’s second film adaptation, based on her 2019 best-selling novel Regretting You, recently hit theaters, and audiences are torn between cringing and laughing. The story follows Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) and her daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace), whose lives are overturned when a tragic accident reveals betrayal and long-buried family secrets.
Directed by Josh Boone, the film features an impressive cast, including Dave Franco as Morgan’s love interest, Jonah Sullivan, and rising star Mason Thames as Clara’s boyfriend, Miller Adams.
The film opens in the mid-2000s, introducing high school sweethearts Morgan and Chris (Scott Eastwood) at a pre-graduation celebration with Morgan’s sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) and her boyfriend, Jonah.
It’s clear Jenny and Chris are the partygoers of the group, while Morgan and Jonah hang back together, as they always do. Amid the laughter and Jonah’s lingering glances, Morgan reveals that she’s pregnant.
Seventeen years later, the story jumps to the present, where Morgan and Chris’ daughter, Clara, is now a teenager, and Jonah and Jenny have a baby. A few kind gestures from Jonah make it clear that he still harbors feelings for Morgan, despite their complicated circumstances.
Meanwhile, Clara crosses paths with Miller, a boy from school she’s been crushing on, but there’s just one problem: He’s taken.
There’s no doubt the film is widely meant for an audience of typically teenage girls who love to see corny cliches and are attracted to the tropes usually found in fanfiction. The story relies on a lot of drama and characters who lack depth, much like a Hallmark movie.
The surface-level writing grabs audiences who like quick reads and watches, likely the reason Hoover’s work has blown up on social media. Nonetheless, the talented cast manages to deliver some (semi) relatable, hard-hitting truths, making the plot seem more profound than it is.
Grace only broadens her impeccable range playing Clara, a dumbstruck teenager infatuated with a bit of a “bad boy”—a character many can no doubt identify with. The chemistry she shares with Thames on screen is undeniable, making viewers feel like their connection is real.
Thames has been getting plenty of screen time lately as an up-and-coming actor, appearing in Black Phone 2 and the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. His character in Regretting You manages to stand out from the rest, not necessarily for his acting, but for a simpler reason: He works at an AMC theater. Regretting You was clearly sponsored by the company, with AMC theater product placement everywhere and many criticisms over the movie feeling like marketing.
As the protagonist, Williams continues her streak of being in roles stuck in the unbelievable. In both M3GAN and Regretting You, she carries a daunting stare typical of a scolding mother, giving the audience chills. Nonetheless, the range is impressive.
The film has frequent themes of betrayal, secrets, and lies. If there’s one thing about Hoover books, it’s that they often involve infidelity. One such case is the cheating storyline with Miller and Clara. While his girlfriend was made out to be crazy and jealous, she actually had good reason to be concerned, and Miller could’ve been single when he began talking to Clara.
As for Morgan and “the one that got away,” Jonah, their hidden feelings only festered while in other relationships. In a heated moment, he confesses, “I’m worried we got it wrong.” Although the predicament adds to the plot, it also adds to the overdone pattern of secrets and predictability. From the first few minutes, it was clear the high school crush never faded.
For viewers who have never read a Hoover novel, Regretting You is for those who find comfort in the expected and humor in the absurd. While the corniness could be off-putting to some, the latest Hoover adaptation proves that sometimes a ridiculous romance movie to giggle and kick your feet to is needed.
