Regretting You Review: You’ll Regret Watching This Movie

PLOT: Centers on the strained relationship between young mother Morgan Grant and her teenage daughter Clara, exacerbated by Morgan’s husband Chris’s tragic death, forcing them to navigate life’s challenges together.

REVIEW: If you’ve been around social media the past month, then chances are you’ve seen Mason Thames and McKenna Grace promoting their new film together. The real-life couple seems to be the entire marketing push behind Regretting You, and after seeing it, I’m starting to understand why. They have an infectious energy together and it makes their love story believable. Too bad it’s in this movie. I was also tasked with reviewing the other Colleen Hoover movie, and it’s made me come to one conclusion: this lady can’t write. Her stories are the most cliché, nonsensical ramblings of someone who wants to write romance but doesn’t understand what makes a love story actually make an impact. So let’s get into this review…

Regretting You follows the story of young love and “forbidden” love. Grace’s Clara and Thames’ Miller are high schoolers who get together during the course of the story, and, despite the actors’ chemistry, it’s hard to root for them. Miller is in a relationship already, and it takes something away from their Meetcute. As much as they try to repair that by the end, the damage is done, and it makes the coupling feel a bit off. Even still, Thames and Grace have such chemistry that it’s one of the better aspects of the movie. You just have to ignore some of the uglier elements. Allison Williams’ Morgan and Dave Franco’s Jonah have this “have loved each other since High School” storyline that hits every cliché you can think of. And does someone need to remind Jonah that he has a baby at home? Because the dude seems to forget about the little guy a lot.

Then there’s the whole subplot involving Morgan’s sister and husband, who tragically pass away and throw everyone’s worlds into disarray. It gets drawn out so long and is so sloppily executed that it just adds to the frustration of the narrative. The biggest issue is that every single one of these characters is so deeply unlikable. Whether it’s cheating on their significant others or using them for nefarious reasons, it’s hard not to look down on these people. And it doesn’t help that everything feels so surface-level that even the deaths don’t have the impact that they should. There are so many conflicting tones here that the film doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be from one moment to the next.

I’m a massive fan of Josh Boone’s Stuck In Love, so it’s disappointing to see where the writer/director has fallen. He and screenwriter Susan McMartin do the best they can, but the material just isn’t very good. It’s so stereotypical, and every single plot thread resolves in the most expected way possible. I know, RomComs can be quite predictable, but this takes it to a whole new level. I’m aware that Colleen Hoover gets clowned for being a bad writer, but I just don’t understand why studios are continuing to adapt her work. Her characters are paper-thin, and the story beats are practically a checklist of every romantic cliché that has ever existed. At this point, I’m not sure I see the difference between her writing and a ChatGPT prompt. It’s hard not to just feel sorry for the actors, who are all doing their best.

I’m sure those looking for a breezy RomCom will still enjoy Regretting You but it’s hard not to see its flaws. As decent as the performances are, they’re in characters that range from awkwardly unlikable to silly comic relief. Individual moments work fine, with Grace and Thames having an absurd amount of chemistry, but nearly everything else falls flat. Regret is a massive theme of this movie, and it’s something many moviegoers will be experiencing as they leave the theater.

Regretting You is playing In Theaters on October 24th 2025.