2/10
Good, classic rom-coms have been few and far between throughout the past decade, and ’90’s era enthusiasts are still left starving. If you’re a true rom-com purist, please don’t watch Regretting You.
Regretting You attempts to be heartfelt and profound, but instead leaves viewers physically sick. How can such successful actors end up in such a train wreck? If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Hoover’s debut adaptation, It Ends With Us, suffers a similar fate.
Regretting You follows Morgan Grant (Allison Williams), a recently widowed mother navigating loss, betrayal, and the run-of-the-mill difficulties of raising her teenage daughter, Clara Grant (Mckenna Grace). Their relationship fractures under the intensity of the grief over Chris Grant’s (Scott Eastwood) death, as both rebel through questionable relationships.
On paper, the movie is perfectly poised to be a hit: it has a strong premise, good actors, and an established fanbase from a successful novel. However, the execution is too forced and cluttered to focus on any character’s journey. In trying to cram in every plot line from the book, the story becomes rushed, and the romance feels unconvincing.
The movie begins with a flashback to Morgan and her friend Jonah (Dave Franco) on the day of their high school graduation. Morgan reveals she’s pregnant with her boyfriend Chris’ child. Flash forward to Morgan and Chris dining with their daughter Clara, 16. Meanwhile, Jonah is back with Morgan’s sister, Jenny, and their child, Elijah.
The Grants seem to have it all—until around 20 minutes in when the plot jolts into motion: Jenny and Chris die in a car accident. When your sister and your husband die in a car wreck after a night together at a motel, well, the writing is on the wall here. In a moment that fails to be as surprising as it hopes, the two were having an affair.
The very abrupt plot twist leaves us confused. After never seeing more than casual greetings between Chris and Jenny, but intense chemistry between Morgan and Jonah, it feels like the story should be flipped. There’s no justification for any reason why Chris and Jenny would desert their partners for each other. By all accounts, they seem pretty boring.
The relationship between Clara and bad boy Miller Adams (Mason Thames) also feels rushed. From their first interaction on the side of the road to their first intimate encounter being the result of an emotionally distraught booty call, their relationship is obviously feeble. The supposed emotional climax, when Miller expresses his long time love for Clara through an amateur short film of her sophomore year play (shot without her knowledge, by the way) is not only creepy but weirdly voyeuristic.
Even with the painfully cringy plot, most cast members deliver fairly solid performances. Grace gives us an incredibly accurate rebellious teenager, exemplified in a stellar birthday dinner scene. She’s backed by genuinely funny reactions from her best friend Lexie (Sam Morelos). Thames continues to make a name for himself. He works excellently with all the other actors. Franco and Williams do a good job of representing the nuances of grief.
Additionally, the chemistry within both couples is believable. Clara and Miller exemplify teenage angst, while the years of built up tension flourish into something genuine between Morgan and Jonah.
Despite this, the use of Franco, Williams, Eastwood, and Fitzgerald as their teenage selves only adds to the confusing nature of the film. There is no way that any of them can convincingly pass as teenagers—some of them are over 40. Casting a teenage version of an older actress is undoubtedly a difficult task, as Grace, the world’s leading childhood flashback actress, is already in the film. But production can do better than a dollar store wig and some clean girl makeup.
All things considered, there’s potential here, but the script tries to cram in too much, leaving a slim chance the 116 minute film guarantees audience satisfaction.
Hoover has become infamous as an author for glorifying dysfunctional relationships. That comes to the forefront in her big screen adaptations. She has faced criticism for the romanticization of abusive relationships in her books, Verity, November 9, and It Ends With Us (let us never forget the infamous ‘bring your flowers’ incident).
What makes her books tolerable (and appealing) is that they give the reader the ability to justify the questionable relationships through individualized interpretation. Transitioning the stories to the big screen takes that away because it forces you to confront the gross reality of these relationships.
When reading Regretting You, you can choose to see the beauty in Morgan finding a partner that she had overlooked all along, but when you are confronted with the relationship form just minutes after the death of Morgan’s husband and Jonah’s partner, their relationship becomes a lot more morally questionable.
The same thing happens in Clara and Miller’s relationship. When reading the book, the spontaneity of their relationship seems romantic and Miller’s confession, swoon-worthy, but on camera, Clara comes off as too easy and Miller as a stalker.
There is an alternate world where Hoover’s writing seamlessly translates to the screen, but that would require self-awareness that she is nowhere near achieving. Regretting You takes a dysfunctional relationship and attempts to pass it off as a model of romance. Seeing ugly relationships portrayed as ugly relationships can provide catharsis, highlight the reality of these situations within society, or can point to important irony, but this film doesn’t do that. Regretting You only tries to normalize them.
