Colleen Hoover is an author who, in the past few years, has rocketed into fame and success quite quickly. As a lot of people find these days, TikTok was the main reason for this, particularly one of its small subcultures: ‘BookTok’. Having a steady and successful career before this surge in popularity, it was only natural that her back-catalogue would be eaten up by that community and made increasingly popular. One of her more controversial books had a film adaptation titled It Ends With Us (2024), and this reignited discussion about her. With it hitting the mainstream, she came under a lot of fire for the story’s ‘glorifying of abusive relationships,’ and it immediately became a bandwagon for people to jump on, as they do these days. First and foremost, that film did not glorify abusive relationships, and your media literacy is dead if you think that. It is the typical mantra of an idea being presented by a writer, and then people think the writer agrees with that idea because it is in the film. Secondly, this film is not great, but that is because of more generic matters like poor pacing and ridiculous fairytale clichés, rather than Hoover as a person. This brings us to today, where we are blessed with yet another adaptation of one of her books, which will no doubt start the debate on her again. Regretting You is based on one of her earlier books, and although it has no controversy surrounding it, part of me wishes it did, because it would at least make this a little more interesting to talk about. This is a safe, boring, soapy romance that is clichéd to death and full of so much tonal whiplash that you will need a neck brace.

Regretting You primarily follows Morgan (Allison Williams) and her daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace), a mother and daughter pairing that face their fair share of issues. I will start by saying that the trailer to this film basically spoils a massive moment towards the end of the first act, and if it seems like I am spoiling for the sake of it, the trailers clearly do not respect secrecy, so neither will I (EARLY SPOILERS AHEAD, obviously). Most of Morgan’s growing up was spent with her husband-to-be, Chris (Scott Eastwood), and a couple formed of her sister, Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), and friend, Jonah (Dave Franco). After being introduced to them, we fast-forward 17 years, though suspiciously looking exactly the same as they did back then. However, Morgan and Chris have had Clara, who is starting to become a young woman herself. Having her own car and freedom, she is driving where she sees the ‘coolest boy in school’, Miller (Mason Thames), whom she offers a lift home. Gossiping about the encounter to her Aunt Jenny, Morgan and Chris find out and disapprove of Miller due to his father’s own dodgy reputation. Clara ignores this and continues to text Jenny about it until the texts abruptly stop. At the same time, Morgan and Jonah both get called to the hospital to find out that both Chris and Jenny have died in a car accident, completely shattering the family. Jonah struggles to look after his and Jenny’s son on his own, and spends a lot of his time mourning with Morgan and Clara. None of this seems to put the brakes on Clara’s relentless quest to get with Miller, who seems to have a girlfriend one minute and then is single the next. Further family politics and dormant conversations crop up again between Jonah and Morgan, though, questioning what their spouses were doing together and what they should do next to get on with their lives.

As you can probably see from this synopsis, Regretting You is all over the place, with so much going on, and yet nothing of any actual substance is there to back it up. It does not help that all these characters are completely wooden, with no real attempt to flesh them out beyond the plot. Unless it is important to the plot in some way, you know nothing about these people, and it makes it really hard to root for them when dealing with their multiple issues. It is essentially said that Clara’s whole dream and passion is acting, yet we only see a tiny little bit of her actually doing some right at the end, and by that point, it feels like a complete afterthought. Similarly to Miller, he is a massive film nerd, and you would expect him and Clara to connect over this since their passions are within the same realm. Other than a cinema date, which of course they just spend kissing, that is all you get from that. Sometimes films must take a step back from the plot to give us something, anything, that we can latch onto and make us care about these characters, because here I just do not. This is even worse when the film overwhelmingly smacks you over the head with its sentiment and classic romance clichés because it just feels so manipulatively processed. A good romance film makes you feel involved in the romance in some capacity, giddily smiling along because the connection you are witnessing feels raw and portrayed with enough realism. This is where I believe the trappings come in with Colleen Hoover’s style. Though I cannot speak for the rest of her books, this is two films in a row where I am constantly rolling my eyes at the fairytale glossiness that is sold as romance. This is not how real people are; it feels fake, and from what I have heard and researched, it seems to be a common theme throughout her work. Of course, it is targeted at a teenage audience, possibly even a young adult, but if anything, that means it just sets them unrealistic expectations for how actual love can be in their future.

The worst offense Regretting You commits is trying to balance this groan-worthy, happy-go-lucky romance with such devastating and life-changing family tragedies. From Clara’s perspective, losing not only your best friend in Aunt Jenny, but also your father in one swift blow, you would probably need therapy for the pain that would cause you. But, as I said in the synopsis, none of this stops her from still just trying to get with Miller. A major example of this stupidity comes when Clara sneaks out of her own father’s funeral and tells Miller she wants to get high, which does not turn into a formative moment of her showing how she deals with grief. It instead just becomes a clichéd coming-of-age scene of her trying weed for the first time and Miller laughing at her. Not one time does she mention her dad again; she just goes straight back to asking about Miller’s relationship status. It is mind-numbing how off the mark this tone hits, placing one emotional scene with a typical rebellious teen scene. This further shows that there is a lack of depth as well, because I guarantee the only reason that scene is there is because they felt they needed to progress the romance more, at this point in the film. It is so caught up in its own plot that the characters cannot even mourn for five minutes before it’s back to dumb teen romance time. It is just bizarre, the thought process behind all that this tragedy was a good backdrop for Clara’s romance. You cannot have a life-changing tragedy like this in the same film as a first sexual experience, coming-of-age romp, because it just seems disingenuous in every regard.

Regretting You is one of those films that you will come out of feeling absolutely nothing, because there is nothing there to make you feel anything. It is just a disjointed plot that is thrown together with whatever they thought would make it interesting, and it just does not mix together well. It does help that the acting is generally pretty good, Mckenna Grace showing her talent that has come from a young age, and hopefully gaining even more success in her adult career. Allison Williams is always a joy, and the same with Dave Franco. Above all else, Mason Thames is the man, full of charisma and somehow managing to make some of his dumb lines not sound bad. Having seen Black Phone 2 recently (with no time to review, unfortunately), and then in How to Train Your Dragon earlier in the year, the man has range, and his likeable persona makes him a promising up-and-coming actor. Still, like everybody here, they might need to get a better agent because this film is not great. You will be strung along with the plot, perhaps even being engaged at points, but this film does feel like it was made in a factory, with no real heart or soul put into it.