Late last month, a film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling book, Regretting You, debuted on the big screen. Regretting You is Hoover’s second book to be adapted into a movie, with another, Reminders Of Him, expected to come out March of next year. Leading up to the release of Regretting You, many fans were skeptical about how the film would perform due to the extreme controversy surrounding Hoover’s other adapted film, It Ends With Us. Now, a little over two weeks since its release, it seems fans were right to feel unsure about the film as there has been a lot of underwhelming responses from audiences. So, the question stands: Is Regretting You worth the watch?

Prior to watching the film, my expectations were pretty low considering the outcome of It Ends With Us, but, I tried to keep an open mind going into it. Right off the bat, I was pleasantly surprised by McKenna Grace and Mason Thames’ portrayal as Clara Grant and Miller Adams. At only 19 and 18 years old, I felt the two had higher quality performances than some of the adults in the film.

With that being said, there were still instances where Clara and Miller’s relationship seemed rather unrealistic. At times, their romance seemed almost too good to be true and failed to display the complications and misunderstandings that come with any relationship. Even when the two faced a problem, it was resolved out of thin air with no meaningful conversation or communication of any kind. This could be due to a poorly written script, but unfortunately, it did impact my opinion of the film. 

Something I struggled with throughout the film also was suspending my disbelief. There were several parts of the movie where I felt like certain actors gave unconvincing performances that led me to fall out of the story. Because of the film’s deeply traumatic and brutal plot line, the actions and emotions of the characters are the most important part of the story. This dramatic shift in their lives should have had a more severe and catastrophic impact on them than it did. A majority of the characters treated this traumatic event as some kind of minor inconvenience to their daily lives which made the entire point of the film almost entirely unbelievable. Though I know it is hard to achieve, I still think they could have done a better job crafting the characters’ reactions to be more realistic.

Taking into account that this movie is meant to be more entertaining rather than serious and factual, I would say it was worth the watch. Would I watch it again? Probably not, but I definitely enjoyed myself watching it once. Despite its flaws, I think there are a lot of people who would like this film and I would encourage them to go see it.