Film Review: Regretting You 愛．憾事 (2025) - USA
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 6.5/10
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The camera loves a secret, and "Regretting You," Josh Boone's adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestseller, lays a particularly messy one bare after a shattering car accident. What follows is a melodrama that knows how to twist the knife of grief and betrayal, buoyed by performances that land with genuine emotional force, even when the plot threatens to buckle under its own weight.
At its bruised heart is the fractured relationship between Morgan and Clara, mother and daughter portrayed with exquisite, often painful, honesty by Allison Williams and Mckenna Grace. Williams carries the weary resignation of a woman whose life foundation crumbles, while Grace vibrates with the righteous fury and confusion of adolescence colliding with adult catastrophe. Their dynamic, complex and constantly shifting under the weight of revealed infidelity and shared loss, is the film’s undeniable engine. Dave Franco, as Jonah, the husband caught in the wreckage, delivers a performance of quiet devastation, his face a map of shock and inconsolable guilt. You feel the weight of his choices.
Boone, no stranger to orchestrating youthful sorrow ("The Fault in Our Stars"), handles the immediate, raw aftermath of the accident and the revelation it sparks with a sure hand. He understands the operatic nature of Hoover’s domestic tragedy – the themes of grief, cyclical family failings, and the desperate, clumsy scramble towards forgiveness – and for a good stretch, the film earns its tears. It avoids the treacly resolutions lesser adaptations might favor, offering something closer to hard-won, imperfect understanding.
"Regretting You" suffers from an abundance of narrative riches – or perhaps burdens. The plot, dense with soap-operatic turns and coincidences, occasionally stretches credulity thin. Trying to faithfully compress the novel’s timeline and multiple viewpoints leaves the pacing breathless at times, rushing past moments that needed room to breathe. This narrative compression hits the younger generation hardest. Clara’s tentative romance with the earnest Miller feels like an afterthought, a subplot grafted on rather than woven in, relegated to the background noise of the far more compelling adult turmoil. It’s a missed opportunity for counterpoint and youthful perspective.
The result is a film that shines brightest in its intimate moments of confrontation and vulnerability between Williams and Grace, dimmed somewhat when the machinery of the plot grinds too loudly. It occasionally tips into overwrought territory, a hazard of the genre it embraces.
"Regretting You" delivers, quite effectively, on the contract it makes with its audience: a handsome, well-acted film exploring the shrapnel of secrets within a family. It is emotionally honest where it counts, thanks to powerhouse central performances, particularly the riveting duo of Williams and Grace. While it stumbles under its own narrative ambitions and leaves some threads frustratingly thin, the core emotional journey resonates. It won’t redefine the genre, but for fans of Hoover or a solid, mid-tier drama that knows how to wield heartache, it provides a satisfying, if occasionally bumpy, ride. (Neo 2025)