Based on the book by Colleen Hoover, Regretting You (2025) is directed by Josh Boone and features a screenplay by Susan McMartin. It stars McKenna Grace, Mason Thames, Allison Williams, Dave Franco, Scott Eastwood, Willa Fitzgerald, Clancy Brown, Sam Morelos, Ethan Costanilla, and Luke Pierre Roness. After both her father (Eatwood) and her mom’s sister are killed in a tragic car accident, Clara Grant (McKenna) begins dating local bad boy, Miller Adams (Thames). Meanwhile, Clara’s mom, Morgan (Williams), uncovers secrets about her deceased loved ones that force her to reevaluate her past choices. This urges her to team up with her sister’s widower, Jonah (Franco), in an attempt to keep Clara repeating the same romantic mistakes. Along the way, mother and daughter are forced to accept that no two people are the same, and that the hardships of one’s past are often just precursors to a better future.

Although marketed as a typical teen romance between Clara and Miller, the story is equally focused on the more complex connection between Morgan and Jonah. This provides the material with a tad more complexity than similar stories, but often causes the story to feel overstuffed, unfocused, etc. It includes many different ideas, side characters, and subplots that ultimately serve no purpose in supporting the film’s plot or themes. We’re torn back and forth between so many different half-baked story elements that it’s tough to care about a single one. 

Williams and Franco handle the material well, but Thames and Grace overact their parts to a cringeworthy extent. They attempt to emulate an overly flirtatious, sexual tension-fueled dynamic similar to that of Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in Anyone But You (2025). Not only do the two clearly lack a similar kind of natural, flirtatious charisma, but it also isn’t as palatable when the two characters flirting in this way are barely eighteen years old. I’m not saying it’s unrealistic for these two to flirt this way, but I do find it odd that the film expects the viewer to see it as romantic and cute. Half of the time, the script paints these two as more experienced and confident than the typical teenager. The other half of the time, they’re portrayed as emotionally vulnerable, as teens typically are. They’re inconsistent in how they react and behave, which leads to character climaxes that come out of nowhere. For example, Miller gets extremely upset with Clara because he finds out the reason she asks him to have sex one night is that she’s upset with her mom and uncle. First off, I don’t find it at all believable that a teenage male, especially the local bad boy who has some romantic experience, is going to be too hung up on the reason a cute girl wants to have sex. It’s also not like she’s just using him this one time. They’ve already been dating for a while, and there’s no assumption that she plans to dump his ass after getting him in bed. He just doesn’t like the timing, I guess, which is understandable. However, his reaction is completely over-the-top, as if she cheated on him in a way he can never forgive. I personally do not find it odd or unfair that his girlfriend would want to get frisky to MAKE HER FEEL BETTER. That’s kind of what it’s about, my guy. It also doesn’t help that, before this moment, the character displays a lot of behavior that would undoubtedly be considered creepy in real life, but here is pushed as endlessly romantic. You can’t tell me that a guy who makes constant on-the-nose sexual innuendos is going to care about when or why his girlfriend (not just any girl) wants to get frisky.    

The film uses nearly every lazy, emotionally manipulative trick in the book. Every character, big and small, has some kind of devastating past they’re attempting to overcome. They struggle to accept love because they’re just so emotionally broken, but it’s hard to sympathize with them when their choices are precisely what led to this reality. They often make dumbfounding decisions that display a concerning lack of self-awareness. It’s difficult to sympathize with characters who are attempting to recover from their traumatic pasts when nothing about their current choices hints that they wouldn’t make those same mistakes again. It also doesn’t help that much of the drama between the characters stems from misunderstandings, miscommunication, or outright immature behavior.      

   The film jumps all over the place tonally, unsure whether it wants to be a serious tear-jerker, a light romance, or a zany comedy. For example, it’s incredibly jarring when the film follows a scene of cartoonish teen sex jokes with two adults discussing a possible infidelity between their now deceased partners. It’s a film that makes you want to feel a little bit of everything, and thus, unsurprisingly, doesn’t make you feel anything at all other than confusion. 

Overall, this is another trope-filled, unfocused, and poorly acted romantic drama that feels similar to many of the lesser Nicholas Sparks films, which are most of them. The characters are often inconsistent and inauthentic, especially Clara and Miller. Thames and Grace struggle to create a believable connection and mostly just make the viewer roll their eyes. Thankfully, Williams and Franco lend the material some weight, with their characters’ subplots feeling most appropriately suited for the tone’s heavy dose of melodrama. Unless you’re an unapologetic lover of these kinds of formulaic, cheesy “I found love in a hopeless place” movies, this is mostly just a cliche groan-fest. Maybe fans of the source material will love it, but I can’t imagine this film is even half as effective as the book. C-