“Regretting You” entered theaters on Oct. 24, 2025. The film is based on Colleen Hoover’s 2019 novel under the same title, “Regretting You.” The movie adaptation was directed by Josh Boone and had the screen play written by Hoover and Susan McMartin. While personally, I don’t tend to enjoy Dramatic Rom-Coms, this drama filled one was inciting. Initially I was unsure about how the movie would go, as I never read the original novel and Hoover isn’t an author I particularly enjoy, which might be a hot take. Although I was skeptical, I was hopeful for the movie with the casting of people that I enjoyed from other movies, such as Mason Thames from “The Black Phone,” Willma Fitzgerald from “The Goldfinch” and Dave Franco from “Now You See Me”.
This drama filled Rom-Com focuses on a family, mother and wife Morgan Grant (Allison Williams), father and husband Chris Grant (Scott Eastwood) and their daughter Clara Grant (Makenna Grace). The movie opens with a young Morgan Grant hanging out with her sister Jenny Davidson (Willa Fitzgerald), friend Jonah Sullivan (Dave Franco) and her at the time boyfriend Chris. After Morgan and Johan share a tender moment, she confesses to him that she is pregnant, and we cut to current time where Morgan is preparing for her birthday.
The birthday party previews the main tensions in the story as it reveals the slight overbearingness that Morgan has while she repeatedly calls her daughter who is late to get home and a tension she has with Jonah, who seemingly disappeared for several years after her pregnancy announcement and is now her brother-in-law and has a newborn with her sister, Jenny. Cutting between the birthday party and Clara’s current activities, we meet her love interest of the movie, a mysterious boy name Miller (Mason Thames). As the story progresses a typically heart-breaking event occurs, Chris and Jenny pass away together in a car crash and the rest of their family members are left to deal with the tragedy of their loss.
I particularly enjoyed, well it feels wrong to say enjoyed as it’s over such a difficult trauma, how the movie portrayed Clara’s reaction to the loss of her father and her aunt, who she considered to be her best friend. Throughout the movie, Clara processes and deals with her grief in various ways, through avoidance, guilt, blaming herself for the accident and lashing out at people closest to her. Additionally, I found it interesting how the loss of Chris and Jenny separated and created hostile tension between Clara and her mother as they began to argue and avoid each other.
As Clara is dealing the losses of her family members, she begins to form a relationship with the mysterious boy, Miller, which he seems to be somewhat untrustworthy at first, but he quickly became one of my favorite characters. Miller’s witty sense of humor, love for films and care for Clara really makes him a lovable character. I particularly enjoyed how he was able to help Clara realize her behavior towards him and his mother was unfair as she began to lash out against the both of them.
Although I did enjoy many parts of the movie, I did feel it was quite predictable, which is common with Rom-Coms, but many of the twists in the stories felt very obvious, and that the main conflict was just an issue of not communicating. Which was resolved through, you guessed it, communicating. Which could be a commentary on the effect that losing loved ones has on those that are close, such as the constant lack of communication and resentment that Clara and Morgan have for each other.
Overall, the main appeal of this movie was the drama, the cast and its depictions of trauma, as the filmography and soundtrack was nothing spectacular, besides the one of the opening songs “When You Were Young” by The Killers.
I would only really recommend this movie if you enjoy a drama filled Rom-Com.
