TL;DR – While conceptually interesting, I never bought the romance and the heart of the film, which is a problem when your film is all about the romance.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Reminders of Him Review Introduction –

Having decided, probably wisely, to steer clear of everything to do with It Ends with Us, my first dive into the world of Colleen Hoover came last year with the very interesting Regretting You. It was a film that I fundamentally liked with interesting characters, so I was interested to see what other worlds she could create.

So, to set the scene, Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe) is making a trip back to her hometown, but this is not a celebratory return. She has just been released from prison after serving 5–7 years for vehicular homicide. She is also not just returning to her hometown to reminisce, because the homicide was her former lover Scotty (Rudy Pankow), and their child Diem (Zoe Kosovic) now lives with their grandparents, Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford). Kenna had her parental rights stripped from her, and now needs to reunite with her daughter. First step, finding a place to live, and a hotel aptly named Paradise is the place for that. The second step is finding a job, and that is where she runs into Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers), Scottie’s old best friend.

What Shines

While Reminders of Him didn’t connect with me, and we will explore why in a moment, that is not to say there were not aspects of the film that shone. To start with, I adored the supporting cast. Every single one of them brought so much-needed depth and complexity to the film. Monika Myers is an absolute delight, and the film is made better with every moment she is on screen. Nicholas Duvernay was not meant to be the heart of the film, but I think it took that crown through sheer chutzpah. Also, Lauren Graham & Bradley Whitford’s characters are not painted in a particularly sympathetic light, and yet they make it work and land the complexities of the roles. Though Bradley, your character really needs to learn how to apologise better.

Then there is the presentation, I think they perfectly nailed that odd town in the middle of a rural landscape. There are a lot of parts of the town that have seen better days, and then these oddly gentrified spots in the middle of it all. Then there is the clear socio-economic divide that no one talks about, but is present everywhere. I also thought the potential of the subject matter, the dehumanising of people who have served time, was an interesting perspective to attach to this film. Though the film only really gives a surface-level exploration of this, which is one of the problems we will explore in the next section.            

What Fails

However, at the core of the film, there is a problem that created a barrier for me, and that was its central romance. The film presents it as a very shallow romantic pairing, with the biggest issue being the effect of the relationship on other people. Most notable are the parents of the guy killed by Kenna. It is painfully obvious that Ledger is using the relationship in part to appease his guilt for not being there for Scotty when he needed him, also finishing the odd way he is using his life. While Kenna is at least on some level using him to get to her daughter. But beyond some lip service, the film does not want to acknowledge the multiple layers of messed-up implications that are sitting under the surface here.

These issues yank you out of the narrative because you are meant to find redemptive sympathy for both characters, but instead for me all I felt was a growling dislike for everyone involved. For example, it takes a single lukewarm conversation to turn Ledger from physically removing Kenna from place by force to actively helping her and making moves. It felt disingenuous for the character. This is added to by the fact that the leads did not have good chemistry together on screen. I have seen both actors excel in other projects, and much like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, they also work better when they are alone with other characters, so I don’t know what happened here. But there was no genuine connection throughout the film, which relies on that emotion to work. I will say that several people around me were in tears by the end, so maybe I am an outlier here.

On the production side of things, there were a couple of moments where it felt like people were acting to greenscreen/volume, and they hadn’t quite synced it up, or maybe the lighting was off. Also, I am not 100% sure about this, but it felt like the film digitally tweaked Zoe Kosovic’s performance. Whether it was a sound issue or a digital combining a couple of different takes together, but something about the sync felt off, and it pulled me out of the moment. It’s not Kraven the Hunter bad. But it did take me out of the moment in places.     

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Reminders of Him? Personally, I don’t think I can. While there were some memorable moments in the film, they don’t come together in a way that feels like a united whole. For all the potential depth in emotions, topics, and relationships, it instead became a shallow experience for me. That said, judging by the reactions around me, I may be in the minority, so if you do like the romance genre, then there may be something here for you.

Have you watched Reminders of Him? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked Reminders of Him, we would recommend Crazy, Stupid, Love to you because if you have seen it, you know how it deals with complexities like this film, but it also has the chemistry component.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Feel free to share this review on social media and check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Reminders of Him
Directed by – Vanessa Caswill
Screenplay by – Colleen Hoover & Lauren Levine
Based on – Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover
Music by – Tom Howe
Cinematography by – Tim Ives
Edited by – Michelle Harrison
Production/Distribution Companies – Heartbones Entertainment, Little Engine Productions & Universal Pictures
Starring – Maika Monroe, Tyriq Withers, Rudy Pankow, Lauren Graham, Bradley Whitford, Zoe Kosovic, Lainey Wilson, Jennifer Robertson, Monika Myers, Hilary Jardine & Nicholas Duvernay
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: PG; Germany: 12; New Zealand: na; United Kingdom: 12A; United States: PG-13