The director of The Fault in Our Stars, Josh Boone, brings a new romance drama from page to screen. Boone was able to turn the bestselling teen novel, at its time, by John Green, into a heartfelt film. Now, he brought Colleen Hoover’s second film adaptation, Regretting You. Hoover’s first film adaptation, It Ends With Us, ended with production drama, and this film didn’t fare much better.
Based on the bestselling book, Regretting You centers on the strained relationship between young mother Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) and her teenage daughter Clara Grant (Mckenna Grace), exacerbated by a family tragedy, forcing them to navigate life’s challenges together.
Like most romantic films, the leads have to have natural, playful chemistry. Regretting You contained that for its main young lovers, Clara and Miller Adams (Mason Thames). Aside from these two, no other couple or two people had believable acting chemistry with one another. Williams and Scott Eastwood did not feel like husband and wife; Dave Franco and Willa Fitzgerald did not feel like husband and wife; Williams and Grace did not work as mother and daughter; and best friend Lexie (Sam Morelos) and Grace lacked a tightly-knit on-screen best friend relationship.
Though the chemistry between the actors felt off, it could also be chalked up to miscasting some of these characters. Williams worked well as a mother in a horror film like Megan 2.0 and its predecessor, but not in this film, where she looked to be struggling to be the hateable mom. It appeared like she had to force it out of herself.
Even though Morelos threw out some hilarious one-liners, her character barely felt like Clara’s best friend, such as when Lexie talked about Miller for the first time in front of Clara’s parents. There is no way a really good best friend would say this. The only other decent duo chemistry was between Clara and Jenny Grant (Fitzgerald), as sisters.
Building on the actors’ performances, Regretting You’s core sin was in its final casting decisions—specifically for the core four adults. Surprisingly, the two young actors, Grace and Thames, had the best line deliveries, along with side characters such as Clancy Brown as Miller’s grandfather and Morelos’ Lexie. More specifically, Grace acted her heart out in Regretting You so much so that it felt like she was giving almost an Oscar-worthy performance while everyone else was giving half of that effort.
Not only was the whole adult group’s chemistry off, but there were some atrocious line deliveries. The stunning set decorations could not even save the fumbling lines. Most of which came from Williams and Franco.
“Regretting You’s core sin was in its final casting decisions…”
In one of the first act scenes, Williams as Morgan was in the kitchen playfully bantering with her sister, then randomly paused to say to no one, “Oh, I hate that door,” to a swinging wooden door. Williams said this in the most monotone way too. Also, the camera stayed a few beats longer to emphasize how important that detail would come up later, but it was very off-putting in the moment.
Franco’s crashouts and crying scenes did not work for the actor, along with the costume design choice to give him glasses; all of which seemed like they wanted to make Franco’s Jonah Sullivan a reserved, cowardly character. Also, Franco was jacked out of his gourd and wore either no shirt in flashbacks or tight shirts in the present—not selling the cowardly facade at all.
To take some blame off the actors, they could have been pigeonhole to the source material and the screenplay. But still, someone in the casting department made this tough decision. Regretting You’s cinematography and colour grading perfectly matched the aesthetics of the film, though. Additionally, it was a smart choice not to show the accident because it let the audience build up to the shocking revelation in the film.
The essential themes in Regretting You are centred around dealing with grief, betrayal, and loss. All of these themes bled into the DNA of this film well enough. However, some comedic moments or odd depictions threw off the target feelings this movie was going for. Where It Ends With Us had mixed advertising as to what the general vibe of the movie should be, Regretting You had laughable scenes where they might not have needed to because it was an emotionally heavy moment.
For example, the baby was laughing and had the biggest smile while the rest of the family just learned someone had passed away. Another example was when Clara stumbled into the house after getting inebriated, after missing the second part of a funeral service. The running gag of “being grounded” went from Morgan being a super strict mother to a joke by the end of the film, breaking up any tension when there should have been. The tonal shifts were incredibly strange to witness.
While the score gave off generic Hallmark romance movie instrumentals, the soundtrack choices were a breath of fresh air. Regretting You had a few inaudible montages or travelling shots, so the use of good music was important. From The Killers to Lady A, what more could set someone in the mood for a small-town story in the 2000s or early 2010s? This movie’s strength was in its nostalgic factor. Everything from high school firepit parties on the beach to backyard pool parties with the homies and partners set that tone in the flashback scenes.
On the other hand, with these flashback scenes, it was unclear if Boone intended to use CGI or some kind of de-aging technology for his main four adult actors. Williams, Franco, Eastwood, and Fitzgerald all looked like they were their grown-up selves, but were trying to act like high schoolers. In some cases, it would be great to use the same actors to portray their younger selves. But a 17-year difference between the present and past is a stretch; just get younger actors to play them. They did it for the flashback scenes in It Ends With Us.
Regretting You proved that Boone still had the great directing skills for young actors as he did for Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort in The Fault in Our Stars. Unfortunately, the actors playing the adults in this movie failed the assignment. From a technical standpoint, where this is a romance drama, this was a significant step up from It Ends With Us, but that isn’t saying much. This is the perfect romance drama film to throw on, on Paramount+, when you are fighting with your mom because both of you will be stunned by some of the line choices and plot threads that unfold.
