‘Reminders Of Him’ Review – Another Failed Colleen Hoover Adaptation

There are melodramas that work because they lean fully into their emotions, and then there are movies that mistake emotional manipulation for emotional storytelling. Reminders of Him very clearly lands in the second category. It wants to be a tearjerker about forgiveness and second chances. Instead, it ends up feeling hollow and lifeless.

Directed by Vanessa Caswill and adapted from the novel by Colleen Hoover, the film follows Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe), a woman recently released from prison after serving seven years for a car crash that killed her boyfriend, Scotty. When she returns to town, she hopes to rebuild some version of a life and reconnect with the daughter she left behind. That proves nearly impossible as Scotty’s parents, Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick Landry (Bradley Whitford), now have custody of the child and refuse to let Kenna anywhere near her. The only person who shows her any sympathy is Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers), a former NFL player who owns the local bar and also happens to have been Scotty’s best friend.

The setup isn’t inherently bad. Stories about people trying to rebuild their lives after catastrophic mistakes can be incredibly compelling, and there’s a lot of emotional territory you can explore there, like grief, resentment, forgiveness, and the way communities close ranks around tragedy. Unfortunately, the film never digs into any of that with much depth.

The problems start with the performances, and they’re hard to ignore. Maika Monroe has proven in the past that she’s capable of carrying complex emotional material—look at Longlegs—but here she gives what is easily the weakest performance of her career. Kenna is supposed to be a woman carrying enormous guilt and desperation, yet Monroe plays nearly every scene at the same flat emotional level. Even moments that require her to explode with anger, you can tell she is barely trying; therefore, her performance becomes less believable. There are confrontations where she’s clearly meant to be furious or devastated, but the delivery feels strangely lifeless, like she’s just trying to get through the dialogue or just there collecting a paycheck.

Tyriq Withers, on the other hand, at least looks like he’s trying. His performance as Ledger isn’t amazing, but it’s easily the most watchable thing in the movie. There’s a natural warmth to him that helps the character feel somewhat human in a story full of cardboard personalities. When Ledger is on screen, the film briefly feels like it might find some emotional footing. Unfortunately, the script never gives him enough material to elevate things beyond “serviceable.”

One of the film’s biggest issues is the writing. The screenplay, credited to Caswill alongside Hoover and Lauren Levine, feels oddly mechanical. Scenes don’t flow into each other so much as they simply happen in sequence. Characters make emotional leaps without the groundwork to justify them. The most glaring example comes early in Kenna and Ledger’s relationship. When Ledger first discovers who Kenna is, he reacts exactly the way you’d expect: anger and hostility, a firm refusal to let her anywhere near the child. That reaction makes sense. But within a few scenes, that anger evaporates, and he suddenly begins sympathizing with her. There’s no meaningful transition, and the shift happens because the story needs it to happen so the romance can begin.

That romance is another major weak point. Monroe and Withers share almost no chemistry, which makes their relationship difficult to invest in from the start. The film tries to frame their connection as something complicated and forbidden, but without believable emotional tension between them, the whole thing feels forced. You’re constantly aware of the mechanics pushing the plot forward.

The supporting characters fare even worse. Scotty’s parents, played by Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford, should be emotionally central figures in the story—they lost their son and are raising his daughter, after all. That’s powerful material. Yet the film barely explores their perspective at all. Instead, they exist almost entirely as obstacles in Kenna’s path. Most of the supporting cast functions the same way. They’re not characters with their own inner lives; they’re narrative tools that either block Kenna or help her depending on what the scene requires.

Once the film ends, it expects the audience to feel some kind of catharsis. The problem? Well, it’s that very little of the emotional groundwork has been laid in a convincing way. The movie constantly tells you how much pain everyone is carrying, but it rarely shows it in a way that feels real.

What makes Reminders of Him so frustrating is that the core idea isn’t hopeless. A story about a woman trying to earn forgiveness after destroying a family’s life could have been powerful. With stronger writing and more committed performances, it might have explored grief and accountability in a meaningful way. Instead, the film settles for melodrama that never works and takes itself so overly seriously that it becomes almost laughable.

Aside from Tyriq Withers’ effort to inject some life into Ledger, there’s not much here to hold onto. The performances feel half-hearted, the romance lacks almost no spark, and the storytelling stumbles from one contrived moment to the next.

For a movie built entirely around emotional reconciliation, Reminders of Him leaves surprisingly little to feel.

Reminders of Him will debut exclusively in theaters on March 13, 2026, courtesy of Universal.