A year after the drama that followed the adaptation of Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us, starring director Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, comes an adaptation of Regretting You, led by Black Phone 2 star Mason Thames and Young Sheldon breakout Mckenna Grace.
Luckily, it appears there will not be the same kind of ensuing drama following the release of Regretting You, given its subject matter being lighter, all things considered.
Hoover entrusts director Josh Boone — who made a name for himself by adapting The Fault in Our Stars — with the keys to the car, as he directs Regretting You and two of Hollywood's biggest stars.
Regretting You review: What's it about?
Written by frequent Chuck Lorre collaborator Susan McMartin, Regretting You is a complicated tale of relationships. Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) is the wife of Chris Grant (Scott Eastwood) and the mother of Clara Grant (Mckenna Grace).
They live a simple life, residing in Chris' childhood home. From the get-go, warning signs were there (a drunken Chris tells Morgan that her “drunk” self is his favorite). She got pregnant with Clara when they were still teenagers, having just graduated from high school.
Chris' good friend Jonah (Dave Franco), who would become a high school teacher, is with Morgan's sister, Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald).
17 years later, the two couples remain close. Chris and Morgan seem to have navigated young parenthood, but now Jonah and Jenny are taking on that challenge with their baby.
Things turn awry when Jenny and Chris are involved in a fatal car accident. Naturally, Morgan and Jonah begin spiraling, affecting their respective families.
Regretting You is filled with twists and turns for these characters. No relationship is exactly what it seems on the surface. All the while, Clara begins seeing the most popular boy in high school, Miller Adams (Mason Thames).
Mckenna Grace and Mason Thames steal the movie
Unsurprisingly, it's Grace and Thames who lead Regretting You. The two have a personal connection, judging by Thames' comments during an interview I conducted with him, and that shows on-screen. They will also be seen in the Green Day movie New Years Rev — which premiered at TIFF in September — in the near future.
Grace has always shown a knack for dramatic acting, even in her recurring role as Paige Swanson in Young Sheldon, a character who had a similar rebellious spirit as Clara.
In Regretting You, Grace plays a young woman aspiring to be an actress. While somewhat on the nose, Clara is being held back by her mom, who, on the surface, appears to be a housewife with no individuality. Morgan frequently sketches remodeling ideas, but it's safe to assume she gave up her career when raising Clara.
Allison Williams and Grace share a touching mother-daughter connection
The relationship between mother and daughter is always fascinating, especially when the daughter is a reflection of the mother at a younger age. That's always a fascinating theme to explore, which Regretting You leans heavily on.
Morgan had Clara when she was a teenager, and it sounds like Chris was a hotshot in high school, as Miller is. Unfortunately, not a lot of time is spent in the classroom, so it's hard to gauge how popular Miller really is. Charismatic? Yes. But that's been Thames' bread and butter throughout his career.
It really helps that Williams, 37, and Grace, 19, roughly have the same age gap as their characters in Regretting You. Their arguments feel personal, and they did a good job of building a rapport.
Thames continues his hot streak
For Grace and Thames, it seems natural. Regretting You is about forbidden love, as Morgan immediately shoots down the idea of her daughter dating the popular Miller.
There's also the implication that Miller's father was no good. However, that is only conveyed through one or two lines spoken by Eastwood.
In fairness, Regretting You is more about Morgan and Clara's relationship, as the latter's relationship with Miller is almost consequentially due to her relationship with her mother.
Still, there was some room to explore Miller and the misconceptions of his mystique. Almost immediately, he appears sweet and misunderstood. He is dating someone, though, when the spark is first lit between himself and Clara.
There were only 116 minutes to play with, but Miller probably should have gotten some more of it. His father is rarely discussed, as is his caring relationship with his grandfather, or “Gramps” (Clancy Brown), as he calls him.
Thames is becoming a budding leading man in Hollywood. He has led two Black Phone movies, and his picture-perfect portrayal of Hiccup in the How to Train Your Dragon remake was one of the best things about the adaptation.
He has a similar charm to a fellow Texan, Matthew McConaughey. Miller is always sucking on a lollipop, and he's a smooth operator with his words.
Again, an actor is only as good as their dance partner. Thames' energy is counterbalanced by Grace, who's playing the happy-go-lucky girl who's still in awe she's talking to the most popular boy in high school.
Is Regretting You an ad for AMC?
One flaw with Boone is that he's not a particularly strong voice behind the camera. Regretting You suffers from Hollywood's shift to overly glossy movies.
The biggest culprit is when Regretting You takes viewers to the AMC that Miller works at, in some not-so-subtle product placement (along with Starry and Jolly Ranchers), making it feel sacrilegious to watch this in a Cinemark.
It may sound like a small nitpick, but given how much time Regretting You spends in an AMC theater, it's distracting. Somehow, the auditoriums don't even look real. It's as if they hired the director of the Nicole Kidman AMC ads for these sequences.
This problem exists outside of the theater chain that “makes movies better.” The gloss exists in the scenes that take place in sunlight. It teeters on the line between a movie and a soap opera.
Should you watch Regretting You?
While far from perfect, Regretting You is a crowd-pleasing Hoover adaptation. It cements Grace and Thames as movie stars, and they are here to stay.
Williams and Franco also do fine work — the latter has never been better. Franco is able to portray so much hurt after the car crash, and he may have the most heartbreaking performance.
Regretting You can be messy, and that appears to be the point. McMartin's script can be too heavy-handed at times, almost being too excited to reveal the plot “twists.”
Overall, it's still a very sweet movie, and it gives viewers what they want in the end.
Grade: B
Regretting You will be released on Oct. 24.
