Director: Vanessa Caswill
Writers: Colleen Hoover, Lauren Levine
Stars: Maika Monroe, Tyriq Withers, Lauren Graham
Synopsis: After prison, a woman attempts to reconnect with her young daughter but faces resistance from everyone except a bar owner with ties to her child. As they grow closer, she must confront her past mistakes to build a hopeful future.
A Colleen Hoover adaptation was…watchable?!? I know, I’m as shocked as you are. After the horrendous It Ends with Us, this critic skipped Regretting You to preserve his own mental state, but was – for some reason – compelled to head out to the cinema (a bit later than most, blame the unstable weather in my neck of the woods) to see what the fuss was all about on Reminders of Him. Now, I was ready to eviscerate the movie to no end, considering that Hoover’s writing proves she has never had any meaningful interaction with a human ever. However, I came out of it feeling the opposite. Sure, its flaws stick out like a sore thumb, but it’s also surprisingly not terrible?
It essentially boils down to director Vanessa Caswill keeping Hoover’s emotionally powerful story at the heart of the book as human and textured as possible when transposing it to the screen. She doesn’t make the film’s more serious sections feel exploitative, and she also (smartly) avoids the egregious product placements (including the lead star’s personal brand) found throughout It Ends with Us that turned a horrifying portrait of abuse into a glorified commercial for Pinterest mood boards.
Whenever Reminders of Him gets darker and taps into Kenna’s (Maika Monroe) mistakes, the film depicts these sequences with the necessary gravity required, letting you experience what the protagonist feels and the internal battle she faces as a mother longing for redemption. The central event that leads to her imprisonment doesn’t feel manipulative, nor does it blame anyone in particular. It shows the scene as it is, allowing the audience to sit with the character’s actions as a moment of real vulnerability. That said, did it need that many psychotic needle-drops of Coldplay’s “Yellow” playing throughout? And not just the original version – so many variations! That’s debatable (the answer is no).
Regardless, the overall effort is much better than it has any right to be, and that’s mostly thanks to Caswill’s humanist lens. She creates an alluring and patient visual style that’s in near-perfect response to Kenna’s internal and external struggles. Caswill also doesn’t try to depict harrowing situations with an overtly “glossy” or “candy-colored” tinge, although some of the drama and romance feel a bit forced, but that’s not entirely her fault. The screenplay, written by Hoover and Lauren Levine, is sometimes sincere, and occasionally chintzy and downright bizarre.
One scene, you’ll have Maika Monroe give a profoundly soulful turn as an ex-convict looking to do right by her estranged daughter, Diem (Zoe Kosovic) and make amends to her boyfriend’s parents, Patrick (Bradley Whitford), and Grace (Lauren Graham), after the love of her life perished in a car crash when she was driving the vehicle. In another scene, you’ll hear the most baffling dialogue ever written. You’ll quickly be aware which ones were written by Hoover and which ones were polished by the more competent writer. However, there isn’t a scene that isn’t handled with some form of respect, even when it gets shamelessly predictable and downright treacly as Kenna forms a relationship with Ledger (Tyriq Withers, portraying a football player in another movie with Him in the title – if I had two nickels, etc, etc.).
The former NFL star was once best friends with Kenna’s boyfriend, Scotty (Rudy Pankow), but wasn’t there for him when Scotty needed Ledger the most. He now tries to make it up to him by taking care of Diem, who is under the supervision of both Grace and Patrick. Upon meeting Kenna, he also tries to hear her side of the story rather than demonizing her as Scotty’s parents do. Upon her arrival home after her release from prison, both Grace and Patrick sent her a restraining order, forbidding Kenna from ever seeing her child. The succession of dramatic events also piles on in a less natural flow, but Caswill’s patient direction makes these scenes feel somewhat digestible and less egregious than they might have appeared on the page.
Even if the romance at the center of the story doesn’t feel natural, both Withers and Monroe are excellent and remain constantly engaged in the material, surprisingly also when they have to deliver Hoover’s nonsensical lines. So far this year, Monroe is two-for-two in giving career-best performances in aggressively mediocre movies, after (with Troy Kotsur and Helen Hunt) essentially elevating Maxime Giroux’s English-language debut, In Cold Light, to watchable horizons (despite a fairly assured style that ranged from Tony Scott to Michael Bay rip-offs).
Her portrayal of Kenna is incredibly affecting, especially when the film reaches its inevitable tear-jerking conclusion. Revealing more would mean spoiling details that are best left discovered by yourself, but there is one thing you need to know: the mother/daughter storyline works. The camera lingers on both characters in surprisingly moving ways, and their eventual reunion will (even if you’re anti-Hoover) make you feel something. It’s impossible not to, especially when the dramatic tension between the protagonist and Scotty’s parents is at its highest. There are no forced emotions. No manipulation. No exploitation of tragedy. Just pure cinema at its most deeply sentimental.
I could’ve come here and talked about why Colleen Hoover is a menace and continues to misunderstand fundamental human relationships in her writing. All of this is still true. But the filmed transposition of Reminders of Him isn’t bad. Simple as that. As a critic, going into each film with an open mind, regardless of your preconceptions on a specific individual, is always the way to go. I thought I was going to hate Reminders of Him. I didn’t. What does this say about me? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
