In one sentence: Regretting You follows a mother and daughter, Morgan and Clara, whose relationship is tested by grief, secrets and their respective romances.

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The drama around It Ends With Us may have overshadowed what was, in truth, a thoughtful and effective adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel. Her follow-up film, Regretting You, arrives free from scandal, but also free from the emotion and depth that made its predecessor resonate.

I have read several of Colleen Hoover’s novels and, while Regretting You is not one of her strongest, her enormous following, boosted by BookTok fame, means we will see many more adaptations in years to come, including Verity starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett.

The story follows Morgan (Allison Williams), a young mother, and her 16-year-old daughter Clara (McKenna Grace), who experience a devastating tragedy that drives a painful wedge between them. Clara is weighed down by misplaced guilt as both try navigate their changed lives. We first meet Morgan as a teenager, along with her boyfriend Chris (Scott Eastwood), her sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), and Jenny’s boyfriend, Jonah (Dave Franco) and both couples seem to be rather incompatible. In these early scenes, the actors are digitally de-aged, which is, unfortunately, not at all convincing and, at times, it even appears to glitch. During a summer party, we see Jonah’s lingering attraction to Morgan, who later reveals that she is pregnant with Chris’ baby.

Seventeen years later, we find Morgan and Chris married, while Jenny and Jonah are raising a baby of their own. Meanwhile, Clara is caught up in her first romance with Miller Adams (Mason Thames), the town’s charming film buff who is on mission for the local pizza restaurant to deliver to his house by moving the town sign.

Unfortunately, the film is disappointing on multiple fronts. While it remains mostly faithful to the source material, it leans too heavily into awkward humour, undermining the emotional weight of the story. The tone feels confused, part tragedy, part teen comedy, and the balance never quite works. The performances also vary in quality. Allison Williams, impressive in M3GAN and Get Out, feels miscast here, her smirking appearance through emotional moments makes Morgan’s grief and anger seem insincere. Dave Franco fares better, though his character is written too thinly to leave a real impression.

The film’s pacing is uneven. It is somehow both slow and rushed. Important emotional beats are skimmed over, while others are dragged out unnecessarily. The flashbacks, though mercifully brief, given the de-aging, add little to the story and deprive the audience of necessary context. The teenage subplot, meanwhile, is overly saccharine, though it did earn some audible gasps and giggles from younger viewers at my screening. The film misses a real opportunity in skimming over a key turning point in their relationship, a moment that needed far more emotional reflection.

By choosing to focus less on grief and healing and more on longing and Clara’s relationship, Regretting You seems aimed at a young adult audience despite its mother-daughter angle. It is a confused film that never quite finds its tone, too shallow for a drama, too sombre for a romcom.

For a story about love, loss and forgiveness, Regretting You ultimately left me cold. It is heartfelt in theory, but hollow in execution; a film that ultimately left me regretting only the ticket price.

★★½ (2.5/5)