Regretting You Review: This Colleen Hoover Story Isn’t 'It Ends With Us' But Critics Got It Wrong

The Web of Relationships

The story begins with a sunlit flashback. Two best friends, Chris (Scott Eastwood) and Jonah (Dave Franco), are in their twenties, drinking, laughing, and dancing at a beach party with their partners, Morgan (Allison Williams) and Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), who happen to be sisters.

Jonah teases Morgan, asking, “How did we end up with people who are exactly our opposites?” That line sets the tone. Because the audience can see what they cannot, Jonah and Morgan are more alike than they admit, and Jenny and Chris might have made more sense together.

Years pass. Seventeen, to be exact. Morgan and Chris are now married with a teenage daughter, Clara (Mckenna Grace). Jonah and Jenny are raising a baby boy, Elijah. Life has reshuffled the deck but left a quiet awkwardness in the air, a residue of unspoken choices. Clara, meanwhile, is navigating her own maze of teenage confusion, love, and rebellion. Then, one unexpected incident shatters the fragile calm and forces everyone to confront truths they’ve neatly hidden away.

A Story About Tender Imperfection

What Regretting You does right is refusing to judge its characters. It allows them to make bad choices, to sit with guilt, to feel torn between duty and desire. Boone doesn’t try to polish the moral edges. He lets the film breathe in ambiguity, where love, loyalty, and selfishness constantly overlap. The film’s emotional weight lies in this grayness. Nobody here is entirely right, but nobody is unforgivable either.

This isn’t a story about grand gestures. It’s about the uncomfortable stillness of human emotion, the space between wanting to do the right thing and secretly wishing you didn’t have to.

The Trouble With the Tapestry

Still, the film isn’t without its flaws. The screenplay by Susan McMartin, based on Hoover’s novel, often feels stitched together instead of woven. Scenes don’t always flow into one another; they sit side by side like memories placed in a scrapbook. You can sense the effort to connect events that never quite merge organically.

It’s like trying to mend a cracked vase, not broken enough to discard but never seamless again. The film functions and even moves you, but it lacks the narrative smoothness that could have elevated it from heartfelt to haunting.

When Performances Save The Day

If the screenplay wobbles, the performances keep the film grounded. Mckenna Grace is, quite fittingly, the grace note of Regretting You. As Clara, she is luminous, never theatrical. She captures the restless sincerity of a teenager, angry at her mother, protective of her father, and uncertain about who she wants to be. It’s the kind of performance that feels lived-in, as though she isn’t acting but remembering.

Allison Williams brings depth to Morgan, a woman torn between being a mother and an individual with regrets of her own. Dave Franco delivers a calm, quietly affecting turn as Jonah, who carries emotional restraint like a lifelong burden. Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald complete the emotional circle, and even Clancy Brown, in a smaller role, leaves an impression. Mason Thames, as Clara’s boyfriend, adds warmth and balance to the film’s younger side.

A Heart That Knows What It Wants

Despite its uneven form, Regretting You has a clear emotional intent. Boone’s direction is steady, almost patient, and he doesn’t force tears. He lets them arrive naturally. The film’s most beautiful quality lies in its empathy. It doesn’t moralize. It doesn’t villainize. It simply observes people trying to make peace with choices that changed their lives forever.

Even when it slows down, the film remains rooted in a sense of care. It’s aware that love- romantic, parental, or platonic, is rarely clean or symmetrical. The script may stumble, but the emotions never lose their footing.

A Softer Colleen Hoover World

Compared to It Ends With Us or other Colleen Hoover adaptations, Regretting You feels softer and less intense. It doesn’t try to shock or twist you emotionally. Instead, it builds a slow emotional hum that stays with you long after the credits roll. The dialogue is often simple, but its simplicity feels intentional. There’s beauty in its restraint. It might not be path-breaking but it probably doesn't even needs to be.

Hoover’s world is known for emotional turbulence, yet this film finds serenity in its sorrow. It’s less about regret and more about understanding what regret really means, how it can be both punishment and healing, depending on how you look at it. It has already been a factor just as is the case with several romantic drama authors that Colleen Hoover faces her fair share of criticism with the way she looks at these love stories but it isn't to say that it is polarizing or questionable. Sure, it isn't for everyone but maybe it doesn't need to be.

What Critics Missed

Globally, critics have called Regretting You “stupid,” “plain,” and “emotionally shallow.” That’s an unfair read. Sure, the film can feel vanilla in parts, with a few predictable beats and convenient resolutions. But that doesn’t make it meaningless. Its calm tone is deliberate, not careless. Not every story about heartbreak needs to arrive screaming. Some whisper their pain, and that’s what this one does.

It’s also worth noting how gently the film handles generational difference. The mother-daughter dynamic between Morgan and Clara could easily have slipped into cliché, but the treatment keeps it emotionally honest. Their conflicts are small but real and their reconciliations feel earned, albeit predictable.

Why It Still Works

By the end, Regretting You may not have reinvented the romantic drama, but it certainly redeems it. It’s the kind of film you put on when you’re tired of chaos and just want something that understands how exhausting love can be. It’s a warm, slow exhale. The narrative might not be watertight, but the emotion seeps through.

Boone directs with a sense of calm that feels rare today. There’s no melodrama, no preachy narration, just people trying to forgive and move forward. The imperfections make it more human, more relatable. Maybe that’s what critics missed. The film isn’t trying to be profound. It’s trying to be kind.