Regretting You is the newest film adaptation of a novel written by author Colleen Hoover. Photo: Jessica Miglio/Paramount Pictures.
Romance is dead!
At least that’s what cinemas would have you believe, as it is becoming less and less common to see any form of romance film on the big screen.
Seen any new romantic comedies? Not unless it’s got Dakota Johnson. What about romantic dramas? Ask Blake Liveley how that turns out. Romantic time pieces? Well, Downton Abbey 3 is about divorce, so…
Despite the dying trend of cinematic romance features and their struggle to appeal to the masses, one film may have actually found the formula.
See, Regretting You, the newest film adaptation of a book by Colleen Hoover, has cracked the code.
That code being, make a movie so unintentionally funny and hire co-stars with the least amount of chemistry possible, so the results are so catastrophic that viewers can’t help but recommend it to friends due to how incredibly awful, yet enjoyable, the whole experience is!
For clarification, this movie ain’t good, at least not by any critical measurement. What it is, however, is an enjoyable experience that you can’t help but laugh your entire way through.
Regreeting You tells the story of Morgan (Alison Williams) and Jonah (Dave Franco), high school friends who secretly love each other. However, as a teenager, Morgan gets pregnant, and Jonah’s best friend, Chris (played by Scott Eastwood), is the father.
Meanwhile, Jonah starts dating Morgan’s younger sister, Jenny (played by Willa Fitzgerald).
Seventeen years later, Chris and Jenny die in a car crash, and it is revealed they were having an affair for a long, long time. So Morgan and her 16-year-old daughter, Clara (played by McKenna Grace, who is secretly dating Miller, the son of a known criminal), fight and grieve with one another, as Morgan knows the truth and Clara does not.
All while Jonah, who is left with an infant child, comes to terms with the fact that the kid is not his!
Oh boy, what a rollercoaster that was!
In hindsight, not much of that synopsis is particularly funny, which is what makes it enjoyable to watch.
Everything is so melodramatic, and it is all built on the fact that everyone makes the most ridiculous decisions possible, all while not properly communicating with anyone. It makes for peak comedy!
If Morgan sucked up her pride and told her daughter the truth about her father, this entire thing would be 20 minutes long. Sure, it defeats the point of the movie, but it does prevent everyone in the movie from looking like a stuck-up dumbass.
This leads to the fact that, for not even one second, do you believe that anyone in this film likes anyone else. Morgan clearly didn’t like her husband, even before the crash. She is clearly jealous of her sister and her relationship with Jonah.
Clara hates everybody except for Miller (Mason Thames), who, in and of himself, is a strange dude. Miller only likes the lollipops he’s consistently sucking on, and Jonah hates everyone, including his kid.
Sticking with Jonah. His best friend or worst enemy is the cameraman who filmed some of his scenes, because any time he says anything, the camera zooms in on his face and stays there.
In fact, if you told me that 95 per cent of Jonah’s scenes were filmed with him knocking on Morgan’s door and looking longly into the middle distance with a look of constipation on his face, I’d believe you.
This brings me to the editing and pacing.
It’s a beautiful wreck, akin to seeing footage of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic. A lot of devastation occurred to get it there, but in the grand scheme of things, it does look quite majestic sitting there with some of its holes and rust.
Of course, when I say beautiful, I do mean that it caused me to laugh the entire way through.
All of it was visually incoherent, mixed with pacing that was either causing me whiplash or leaving me internally questioning whether my popcorn was laced with a sedative.
After being a few days removed from seeing this movie, it might actually be my favourite movie experience of the year.
While it wasn’t very good, I did see it with my brother in an empty room, and this allowed us to soak in everything with no shame of laughing or cheering. The only thing that would have made this better is if a full cinema joined in on laughing just as hard as I did.
Regretting You is showing in cinemas across the country.
