This review contains spoilers.
Who on earth came up with the plot line of this movie? It’s a question I asked myself as I sat through the new rom-com (though some could argue horror movie), “Regretting You.”
Set to be released Friday, the movie is adapted from author Colleen Hoover’s book of the same name. Like many teenage girls in America, I had my CoHo (as many of her fans endearingly call her) phase, but I never got around to reading “Regretting You.” In part, because Hoover has been criticized for romanticizing toxic relationships, failing to include trigger warnings about sensitive content and writing problematic characters and tropes.
After watching the film adaptation of “Regretting You,” I can confidently say I’m happy that I didn’t know anything about the plot ahead of time. So before reading the rest, I suggest you watch the movie first and go in blind just as I did.
“Regretting You” opens with a flashback from the protagonist, Morgan (Allison Williams), as she sits in the back of her boyfriend’s pickup truck with her younger sister and her sister’s boyfriend. Upon stopping at a gas station to attempt to buy beer, Morgan sneakily takes a pregnancy test.
You guessed it, it’s positive.
She confirms to the audience by telling her boyfriend’s best friend (and also her sister’s boyfriend), Jonah (Dave Franco), at a high school bonfire kickback. Because, where else would she reveal such an important life update?
Flash forward to the present day, and Morgan is married to Chris (Scott Eastwood), her high school boyfriend and the father of their daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace). The time jump is mostly clear, though the makeup’s attempt to make the older actors look younger fails miserably.
Jonah pulls into their driveway with Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), Morgan’s sister, and their newborn son for Morgan’s birthday dinner, which quickly commences.
By this point, the audience (or maybe it was just me) is thinking one of two things. One, why does everyone in the cast have perfect bone structure? And two, why do Jonah and Morgan have such a tense, chemistry-filled relationship?
But before the audience can formulate their own ideas about the pair’s history, Chris and Jenny tragically die in a car crash. Because it’s not a CoHo book (or movie) if there’s not a series of insanely tragic events.
Jonah, Morgan and Clara are left to grapple with their deaths and a big question: “Why were the two together?”
A series of crashouts ensues.
Clara leaves her dad’s funeral to get high with her school crush (and my new celebrity crush after this film), Miller Adams (Mason Thames).
Morgan and Jonah investigate why the two were together and driving in the same car, tracking Chris’s car to a hotel rendezvous with Jenny’s lingerie still in the room. You can put together the rest…
After this reveal, the plot is all over the place. The film attempts to balance storylines of loss, teenage love, infidelity and estranged family relationships all at once. While it may have worked for a 300-page book, it didn’t work for a film that ran just under two hours.
To give “Regretting You” some credit, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Despite frequent jumps between characters, the unfolding of their storylines was met with gasps, laughs and a few tears from the crowd.
One of the highlights of the movie is the relationship between Clara and Miller as they navigate balancing their passion and familial commitments. Though their relationship sometimes felt like an AMC ad (most of their dates and interactions took place in the AMC Theatre where Miller works), it was a sweet tale of teenage love.
Franco and Thames had standout performances in the cast and were able to hold the plot together with their nuanced portrayals of Jonah and Miller. They somehow succeeded in convincing me that everyone could have a happy ending after such a tragedy.
The revelation of shocking betrayals would have left the average person in shambles, but not the Grant family.
The film ends with Morgan rediscovering her passion for interior design, turning her cheating husband’s family home into a pink dreamhouse straight out of Pinterest. Clara and Miller are set to attend the same arts college for theater and film, respectively. And, Jonah and Morgan rekindle the romantic “vibe” they never got to explore in high school.
All in all, “Regretting You” is a dumpster fire that you absolutely must watch when it officially releases on Friday. And, it made me even more excited for the film adaptation of another CoHo book, “Reminders of Him,” which will be in theaters on March 13, 2026.
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