No film critic was ever going to have high hopes for Reminders of Him, the latest adaptation in the Colleen Hoover cinematic universe, where disconcertingly attractive people in middle America find themselves in ludicrously complex ethical dilemmas that only work to make them horny and upset. However, one must try to reserve judgment until after viewing the final product, especially when said product stars scream queen Maika Monroe, who has delivered brilliantly layered, offbeat horror performances in the likes of Longlegs, Watcher, and It Follows. And yet, my instincts were right. Undoubtedly the worst of the Hoover adaptations so far – following the ill-fated It Ends With Us and the teenybopper Regretting You Reminders of Him is all the subliminal Christian romance schlock you’d expect with the added injury of Monroe turning in a disappointingly phoned-in performance.
Monroe’s Kenna returns to the small Wyoming town she used to call home after being released from prison – her flat narration reads aloud the letters she writes to her dead boyfriend, Scotty (Rudy Pankow), who was killed in the car accident that sent Kenna to jail for vehicular manslaughter. Kenna was unknowingly pregnant when the crash occurred, forced to give birth while incarcerated and never allowed to see her daughter, who now lives with Scotty’s parents (Lauren Graham and a really-too-good-to-be-here Bradley Whitford). They still blame Kenna for their son’s death and continue to prevent her from seeing her daughter.
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Amongst all this is the hulking, god-like Ledger (Tyriq Withers), a former NFL star turned local bar owner, and Scotty’s best friend who has taken it upon himself to be the pseudo-uncle to Scotty and Kenna’s young child, Diem (perhaps the couple watched Dead Poet’s Society during conception?). Of course, Ledger is fated to fall in love with Kenna despite their flat chemistry, and he finds himself in the crosshairs of A Very Hoover Scandal.
An outrageous set-up where the only pay off is a bland heterosexual couple eventually fucking is Colleen Hoover’s bread and butter. While the story’s concept should leave space for more existential and genuinely compelling conversations around redemption, forgiveness, and the inhumane practice of forcefully removing newborn babies from incarcerated mothers, all of this is just foreplay for the uninspiring romance between the leading couple in Hoover and Lauren Levine’s script.
Rising star Tyriq Withers does a decent job of the morally conflicted man caught between his sense of duty to the best friend he failed and a guilt-ridden mother who yearns to meet her child, but Maika Monroe strives for the traumatized self-isolater only to end up jarringly lifeless, squandering any of the film’s chances at chemistry or passion. It’s as if Monroe came off the Longlegs set onto this film and decided to remain in character. Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford barely get a look in, but the scenes between Graham and Monroe do offer some semblance of a nuanced emotional drama.
Despite the galloping beauty of the Wyoming backdrop, director Vanessa Caswill insists on staging every scene like those uncanny vertical phone dramas you get advertised on Instagram. These tourism board backdrops, paired with TikTok-trending soft country ballads, result in a film that has no ambition beyond appealing to BookTok devotees and right-leaning suburban women who post on local neighbourhood pages about “suspicious youths” loitering too close to their McMansions. While It Ends With Us and Regretting You contained at least some decent acting and production value, Reminders of Him is a grim dose of misery and trauma porn punctuated by a terrible lead performance and an undeniable conservative sheen.
