Lauren Levine’s “Reminders of Him” follows in the footsteps of previous Colleen Hoover adaptations, the drama-laden “It Ends with Us” and the conflicted “Regretting You.” Yet somehow, this latest adaptation feels like a lesser entry in the Hoover cinematic universe, with an awkward romance, a tame script, and unsurprising twists. Like “Regretting You,” this is also motivated by a double tragedy, but perhaps its worst feature is how dreadfully long it feels like to get anywhere in this movie. I don’t accept this languid passion in the age of “Heated Rivalry“!
In “Reminders of Him,” Kenna (Maika Monroe) returns home in Wyoming to restart her life after a prison sentence for the vehicular death of her would-be fiancé, Scotty (Rudy Pankow). She’s trying to reconnect with the daughter she gave birth to in jail, who now resides with her partner’s parents, Patrick (Bradley Whitford) and Grace (Lauren Graham), neither of whom is particularly keen to hear from the woman who accidentally killed their son in a car crash. Striking out when looking for work, Kenna wanders into the bar owned by Scotty’s best friend, Ledger (Tyriq Withers), a surrogate father of sorts to Kenna’s child, and regularly helps Patrick and Grace take care of her. As Kenna struggles to get her life back on track, Ledger struggles to do what’s right for all sides of the grieving family, and the pair wrestles with new feelings for each other.
Besides the initial “I guess he’s named after Heath Ledger” observation, “Reminders of Him” is full of the emotional, confrontational scenes found often in teary-eyed cable movies, and Levine films them as such. Many of the shots in this movie look blandly staged, but at least they are warmly lit by cinematographer Tim Ives. Its narrative structure is built to surprise the audience with each new layer of grief facing Kenna, first with the experience of looking for work as someone with a criminal record, then with her role in Scotty’s death (a detailed unraveling that takes almost the entirety of the movie to reveal), then the surprise of losing custody of her daughter and the grief over it all she carries with her still.
Those familiar with Colleen Hoover’s book or style will be less surprised by these developments. Her march to dominate the romantic drama space in theaters continues apace with her third adaptation. Co-writing the script with producer-turned-screenwriter Vanessa Caswill, Hoover hits a lot of the familiar beats, but doesn’t give this story a new life. If anything, Levine’s insistence on featuring Kenna’s hometown among the Rockies gives the film its defining feature: a more rustic, expansive setting than the suburban and city-set previous entries, which indirectly emphasize her grief and loneliness.
Out of these tragedies comes love, but there’s very little chemistry between leads Monroe and Withers. As Kenna, Monroe gives a strong performance exploring her character’s disassociation. She’s not weepy for the sake of tears; instead, she’s strangely aloof yet clearly mournful over the prospect of facing this heartless world on her own. Both Kenna and Ledger have their share of flashbacks to life with and after Scotty, stuffing the story with even more grief than already necessary. While it’s practically Biblical for a man to look after his brother’s widow, Withers doesn’t make much of an impression on screen; he just maintains a stoic yet concerned look throughout the film.
In regard to Ledger, there’s something odd about making the only nonwhite character in the movie a football player with no apparent family to speak of. Kenna at least has the chance to explain that her family was poor and “from the other side of the tracks,” alluding to the fact that they abandoned her after the incident, but his situation, aside from a broken engagement, feels less filled in. Ledger’s connection with Patrick and Grace seems more tenuous than initially shown, as if he didn’t make all of these sacrifices for years to continue to support them.
Once again, Hoover finds romance in the ashes of loss, romanticizing grief as a chance for vulnerability and connection. “Reminders of Him” is so preoccupied with tragedy that the romance becomes secondary. Now, after our third Hoover adaptation, it feels like we’re getting love with diminishing returns. There’s less to enjoy, even if the movie is almost two hours long. I look forward to turning the page in hopes the next one will surprise me.
