Movie Review: Regretting You

By John Corrado

Regretting You is an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover book, that comes to us from The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone. These two things should tell you what to expect from this film, which is a mix of dramatic weepie and teen romance.

Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) and her husband Chris (Scott Eastwood) had their young lives changed seventeen years ago when they had daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace). Clara is now a teenager with a crush on Miller Adams (Mason Thames), who has a reputation as the town’s bad boy.

We first meet him moving the city limits sign so that his grandpa (Clancy Brown) can get pizza delivered to his farmhouse just outside the town line. Clara gives him a lift home. The two bond over wanting to get in to University of Texas, her for drama and him for film school. The one snag is that he already has a girlfriend.

That’s the teen romance part of it. On the grown up side, Morgan’s younger sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) has a new baby with Jonah Sullivan (Dave Franco), Morgan’s former best friend who skipped town some years earlier and returned to marry Jenny. But their world comes crashing down with a tragic accident, and much of the story focuses on mother and daughter trying to rebuild in the aftermath.

Much of this plays like a Nicholas Sparks copy, to borrow another reference point for curious viewers less familiar with Hoover’s work. The plot is obviously contrived, and requires some suspension of disbelief with certain character choices, but this appears to be a feature of Hoover’s writing (the author is perhaps best known for her book It Ends With Us, the basis for a movie adaptation that got embroiled in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni controversy).

Boone’s film does at times struggle to nail down the right tone, with moments when it feels like it might veer off into more campy territory. Flashbacks to the characters as young adults, played by the same actors, are also a bit hard to take seriously, with Williams and Franco appearing much too old to be playing their characters in the past. It’s a curious choice that ends up taking us out of the film every time they cut back.

You could pick it apart – Clara makes some unlikeable choices that don’t entirely feel believable with how she is portrayed earlier on, Chris and Jenny are underdeveloped as characters, etc. – or just sit back and enjoy the ride for what it offers. Some of the adult drama is less credible. It can get soapy and melodramatic. But, when Regretting You is a teen romance about an aspiring actress and budding filmmaker, it’s pretty cute, and made to recall an age when all emotions are heightened.

The film is also elevated by actors who understand what sort of film they are in, especially the two young stars. Grace does a nice job transitioning from child actress best known for her work in horror projects like The Haunting of Hill House, Annabelle Comes Home, and the two new Ghostbusters movies, to dramatic and romantic lead. Thames, in his third big movie this year following the live-action How to Train Your Dragon and horror sequel Black Phone 2, has the boyish charm of a young movie star. The two make a convincing teenaged couple onscreen.

It all builds to a sweet finale that might feel a little too neat considering the sometimes exaggerated nature of everything leading up to it, but still manages to satisfy and gently tug at the heartstrings for audiences who choose to go along with it. The result is an enjoyable enough melodrama that delivers for its target audience of those looking for a romantic night out.