WARNING: SPOILER ALERT

★★½☆☆

There is something comforting knowing that a resurgence of classic romance films are slowly paving their way back in the modern era – they’re reminiscent of the golden age of the early 90s and 2000s where you couldn’t go through any big blockbuster period without a romcom being in the line up. While I don’t necessarily think we’ve found our Notebook of the 2020s, I think we’re slowly inching our way there.

That said, Colleen Hoover seems to be playing a massive part in bringing back romance movies to the big screen, with her stories striking a chord with audiences globally. While not the most decorated writer, she is incredibly popular. Her stories are simple romantic ideologies with added emotional layers that are also really easy to read. Which is probably why the adaptations of her books are so highly anticipated. 

Hoover currently has had four of her books adapted, including a mini series that premiered back in 2017, with the most recent being Reminders of Him. 

What is the Movie About?

Reminders of Him tells the story of Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe), who is released from prison after seven years of serving time for vehicular manslaughter; the unfortunate accident killing her boyfriend Scotty Landry (Rudy Pankow) on the night of his birthday. She unknowingly was pregnant with their child and gives birth while incarcerated, only for her daughter, Diem Landry (Zoe Kosovic), to be taken away to the NICU without ever getting the chance to hold her. 

Determined to finally meet her daughter, she tries to integrate back into society and rents out a room at a motel while job hunting. During her job search, where she constantly faces rejection due to her criminal record, she meets a man named Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers) at a bookstore turned local bar that Kenna and Scotty used to love. She soon discovers that not only does he own the bar, but he’s Scotty’s childhood best friend (that she never met), and has become a father figure in Diem’s life.

When Ledger uncovers who Kenna is after sheepishly asking for her number, he is equally as determined to keep her away from Diem and protect Scotty’s parents to avoid conflict. But as Ledger gets to know Kenna, he finds compassion and understanding in her pain, growing closer and forming an unexpected romance that might just be Kenna’s best chance at starting over.

The Colleen Hoover Universe Expands

I’ll admit that I am not the biggest fan of Colleen Hoover. The premise of her stories always centre around some sort of glorified trauma. And for some reason, the push off point for all of these movies is the death of a loved one. It feels like none of her stories can move forward, or none of these characters can feel these heavy emotions without someone dying. 

But with that said, I always want to try and come into these movies with a clean slate. And compared to the last release (Regretting You – 2025) this movie felt like it had a bit more substance. 

Is It Really A Romance Movie?

In comparison to the other movies in the Colleen Hoover universe, I believed in this story the most. Albeit, sleeping with your dead boyfriend’s best friend is a little bit off and not something I would personally endeavour to do, but it’s kind of forgiven knowing that they never met each other while Kenna and Scotty were together.

Reminders of Him is wholesome and earnest enough to be a contender for a good romance movie in this era of films. It plays with your heartstrings, has emotional moments, and offers revelations that’ll make you shed a tear or two. But once we get past the romance, the movie quickly becomes more about self discovery in a place of uncertainty.

It was heartbreaking watching Kenna hopelessly try and fail to reach her daughter, and at the same time, uplifting watching her find solace in a new community and a newfound love; arguably being the most gut wrenching part of the movie. The romance immediately pales in comparison to Kenna’s desperation in getting to Diem, where a mother’s love truly has no bounds.

The leads in the movie were also great. Ledger’s charm and kind nature is felt through Withers’ layered performance, where he achingly plays a regretful man who’s lost his best friend and sacrificed everything to be there for Diem. Monroe similarly delivers a beautiful performance in her agony and grief as Kenna. Their individual performances carried the movie, but at times their chemistry unfortunately felt lacklustre purely because you couldn’t pinpoint why they liked each other, other than their mutual affiliation with Scotty and Diem.

And the use of Lord Huron’s song ‘The Night We Met’ also definitely felt like a ploy to get viewers to feel a sense of melancholy when we first meet Scotty, which ultimately works and is maybe the new ‘Chasing Cars’ of this decade with how many times it’s featured in movies and TV shows. But there are moments that take you out of the movie with a few clumsy plot points. 

Falling Short with the Clumsy Storytelling

There seemed to always be a solution to Kenna’s problems that felt too convenient. She didn’t have the money to rent the apartment? Taking a kitten will settle her debt. She got rejected from a job at a supermarket? The lady she met in the bathroom of said supermarket is the Assistant Manager and can pull some strings. For years and years Scotty’s parents didn’t allow Kenna to see Diem, but reading Kenna’s letter to Scotty on the night he died made them change their mind? Rather than believing in her from the beginning? It just felt too easy.

We also barely had any scenes with Scotty, where it felt like he had a solid fifteen minutes of screen time, if that. What we as viewers understand is that Scotty loved Kenna and equally loved Ledger as a brother. But all the interactions felt like surface level moments with no real development of who he was as a person, so it was hard to care for the situation. It would’ve been nice to get more of Scotty in the first half of the movie rather than scattered throughout, so at least we would’ve gotten to know a little bit more of who he was before the accident was shown onscreen.

The end of the movie was also quite rushed. As soon as Kenna reads Ledger the letter she wrote to Scotty the night he died, it felt like a speed run to the finish line. In half an hour, we go from Ledger getting punched in the face, to Kenna, Ledger, and Diem becoming a happy family. You never really get to sit with Scotty’s death, or any of the other events that happen thereafter because everything happens so quickly. 

The Missing Piece

It’s frustrating because all the elements to make a great movie were there. The foundations of the narrative were set, the cinematography produced some beautiful shots throughout, the soundtrack was great, and the leads were incredible. But the underdeveloped plot leaves a desire for more; more that we unfortunately didn’t get.

Header Image Credit: Universal Pictures