Regretting You

by Mike McGranaghan

About 95 minutes into Regretting You, Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) confronts teenage daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace) in a cemetery, telling her, “We need to talk.” Viewers are almost certain to think, “It’s about time!” This drama, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s novel, would be a lot shorter if she didn’t wait an hour-and-a-half to say this. All the characters need to have conversations, but they hold off until the last possible moment, thereby needlessly prolonging their own misery. Despite a few good elements, the film is marred by their inexplicable refusal to do the obvious.

Trying to describe the plot is akin to trying to describe a train wreck. Morgan’s husband Chris (Scott Eastwood) and sister Jenny Davidson (Willa Fitzgerald) are killed in a car accident. They’ve been having an affair no one knew about. That includes Jenny’s husband Jonah (Dave Franco), who quite clearly has been in love with Morgan for a long time. The dual deaths greatly impact Clara, just as she's in the midst of trying to win the heart of “the coolest guy in school,” Miller Adams (Mason Thames). The over-protective Morgan doesn’t tell Clara about her father’s fling, nor about her own budding romance with Jonah. Clara doesn’t tell Morgan how serious she is about Miller, although she does use their attraction when she wants to upset her mother.

Clearly, Regretting You attempts to incorporate many plot threads into its two-hour running time. I haven’t even mentioned Jonah and Jenny’s baby, Miller’s cancer-stricken grandfather (Clancy Brown), Miller’s aspiration to become a filmmaker, or Morgan’s disapproval of Clara’s desire to go to college for theater. This movie doesn’t need a director, it needs a traffic cop.

The best part is the cast. Everyone works diligently to invest the material with emotion. Mckenna Grace again proves to be an adept young actress, able to quickly win us over. She forms sweet chemistry with Thames, who is at his most charismatic. The tense mother/daughter bond Grace and Williams create is realistic, right down to the petty bickering. Franco conveys appropriate sadness as Jonah, although the screenplay mostly requires him to mope around. Each actor gets at least a few scenes to really shine.

And each of them gets mired in increasing silliness. Regretting You introduces a number of heavy themes, only to deal with them in a shallow soap opera-style manner. Because these people don’t have the conversations they desperately need to have, the story rapidly begins to feel manipulative. Their problems go on – and get worse – as a direct result of their inaction. They don’t see that, but we do, and it’s difficult not to feel frustrated.

Once the important dialogues finally take place, the picture is almost over, which means a pat ending. This is a case where a few superficial words abruptly bring great healing. The final scene here is so contrived and so devoid of depth that it’s borderline laughable. Everyone’s dilemmas are magically solved.

Regretting You has a terrific cast. The truly regrettable part, though, is that they’re saddled with a silly script.

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