“Regretting You” Is Too Goofy for Its Own Good

Regretting You (Josh Boone, 2025) 2 out of 5 stars

After the controversial It Ends with Us, author Colleen Hoover returns to the big screen with another adaptation of her work, Regretting You. Thankfully, this film is more bizarre than offensive. There is not a single human being in this film, just a collection of tropes and clichés running around. Director Josh Boone (The New Mutants) desperately wants the audience to take this romance seriously, but the story feels like something out of a soap opera.

In the summer of 2007, best friends Morgan (Allison Williams, M3GAN) and Jonah (Dave Franco, Together) are on the verge of adulthood. It is obvious that the two have feelings for each other, but Morgan is dating Jonah’s best friend, Chris (Scott Eastwood, The Outpost), and Jonah is dating Morgan’s sister, Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald, Strange Darling). It becomes a weird crisscross of affection. Nevertheless, everything changes when Morgan unexpectedly gets pregnant with Chris’ baby. Jonah then abruptly vanishes for sixteen years before returning to their hometown and immediately getting Jenny pregnant. Whoops.

In the present day, Morgan and Chris’ daughter, Clara (Mckenna Grace, Annabelle Comes Home), is now an aspiring actress eager to graduate high school. She is drawn to her classmate, Miller (Mason Thames, How to Train Your Dragon), a local filmmaker who cares for his sick grandfather, Hank (Clancy Brown, The Mortuary Collection). Like Clara, he dreams of pursuing a career in the arts, but his responsibilities hold him back. To his credit, Miller is superficially charming, but he already has a girlfriend when he meets Clara. From that point forward, half his storyline is just him breaking up and getting back together with said girlfriend while he makes up his mind about Clara. From the opening flashback scene, it is clear that Regretting You wants to explore parallel love stories: Morgan and Jonah alongside Clara and Miller. However, the film’s way of setting this up is bonkers.

One morning, Chris and Jenny violently die offscreen in a car accident. The rest of the film then becomes a series of dramatic reveals and misunderstandings. Clara’s classmates are stock teen-movie characters, from her sassy best friend, Lexie (Sam Morelos) to her nerdy Asian friend, Efren (Ethan Costanilla). Morgan and Jonah grieve their loved ones, but now they have the chance to explore their “will they, won’t they” tension. Meanwhile, Clara finds comfort with Miller, which largely becomes a way for her to lash out against her mother.

Despite all these issues, I have to commend the cast for trying to find some emotional sincerity, especially Mckenna Grace. She is genuinely fun to watch on screen and actually has a handful of moving scenes. However, her efforts are undercut by clichéd story decisions. If that wasn’t bad enough, there is also a comical amount of Paramount product placement. It is hard to take a climactic kiss seriously when it’s happening in front of a poster of Glen Powell in the upcoming The Running Man.

Regretting You is not the romantic reflection on grief that it wants to be. It’s too focused on melodramatic tropes to really grapple with the tragedy of its premise. At the very least, it’s cheesy enough to be funny, even if that’s unintentional.

George W. Campbell

George W. Campbell is a director/screenwriter/editor from Bowie, Maryland, whose films focus on themes of family and personal relationships. As a Nicaraguan-American filmmaker, he aims to highlight specific parts of his culture and personal experiences (songs, dances, foods, and language).