Regretting You
Regretting You
Starring Mckenna Grace, Allison Williams, Dave Franco, Mason Thames
Directed by Josh Boone
Life is good for young Clara Grant (Mckenna Grace): she's about to embark on her passion of acting, she's got a loving mother Morgan (Allison Williams) and is close to her father Chris (Scott Eastwood), and her best friend is her aunt Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) and her fiance Jonah (Dave Franco). She's gotten the eye of the most popular boy at school Miller Adams (Mason Thames), and she's essentially enjoying life. Then Chris and Jenny are killed in a car accident, spiraling the young girl's world out of control as she struggles with dealing with the loss of not just her father, but her loving aunt as well.
Meanwhile, Morgan isn't handling things any better, nor is Jonah, especially when they discover Chris and Jenny were having a lifetime affair together. They plan to not tell Clara what's happened because they don't want her to feel negatively toward the deceased, and both struggle with feelings they have for one another out of respect for Clara - but everything is a powder keg waiting to explode, and when it does, it shakes the very foundations of the family.
Everything was supposed to go right with a film like "Regretting You:" an emotional story of grief, loss, torment, unaswered questions, young love, unrequited love, doubt, fears, insecurities, parental turmoil...only the movie tries to tackle each issue and fail to do so on every level. It's a melodrama more than a drama, circled with arguments that repeat over and over, and supplying too many subplots that literally either don't go anywhere (such as with Miller's grandfather dealing with cancer) or get dropped entirely (a surprise reveal that normally would've taken center stage, but after one fight it gets forgotten). For a movie that's 116 minutes, there should've been ample time to discuss all the issues, but instead it's relegated to "you're grounded, go to your room, you can't tell me what to do, I can see who I want to see, I can't believe this is happening" on loop.
The main focus of the film is the sudden deaths of Clara's father and aunt, who - unbeknownst to anyone - were having a secret affair for years. This is the first issue with the movie: there's flashback scenes involving Morgan, Chris, Jenny and Jonah, and even then you knew that the couples were mismatched: Morgan and Jonah always sat aside while Chris and Jenny got drunk and partied. It's so painfully obvious to anyone what was happening that it's an insult to the audience that this is supposed to be a "gasp inducing" moment. All it did was show how shallow Hoover writes her characters, and how naive they really are. We see Clara's relationship with her aunt being strong, but hardly any connection with her father, so when she laments over losing him, it comes off as disingenuous because we never see them doing anything together.
So the story should be about Morgan and Jonah and their shared betrayal and ignoring the sparks in their own relationship that should've started when they were younger. A quest for Allison Williams and Dave Franco to show off their chops (to their credit, they do, but in the script's shallow ways) to grieve together and realize that they were the ones right for each other the entire time. Yet that's not the case, and instead this portion of the movie is overshadowed by Clara's budding sociopathic tendencies.
This happens when Clara uses her pain to gain Miller as a boyfriend (to be fair, he's loved her for years without telling her, so this was his obvious in) and act out in a rebellious manner that irks Morgan to no end, creating a rift between the mother and daughter that feels completely out of left field considering how close they were beforehand (except for Clara constantly ignoring Morgan's phone calls, to which if you played a drinking game every time a scene like that came up, you'd be in the hospital with alcohol poisoning). It seems like a forced plot point that doesn't match either character's motivations, but Clara takes advantage of that and Miller to get back at her mother, to whit Miller finally realizes what's going on and breaks up with her - only to be reunited a few scenes later without resolving the conflict.
Mckenna Grace has been a huge star in the making for a long time now, and seems that she's constantly overlooked. She's starred in some of the biggest blockbusters including the last two "Ghostbusters" movies as well as "Captain Marvel," awards movies like "I, Tonya," and horror gems "Annabelle Comes Home," "Malignant," along with hit television series "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Haunting of Hill House," yet she doesn't get the credit she deserves. She shines in the role of Clara as well, showcasing hurt and pain and how it can fester into something more dangerous and self-destructive. Mason Thames is having the year of his life, appearing in "How to Train Your Dragon," "Black Phone 2" and now this, where he is the most subdued and grounded character, and the most relatable as he tries to find a way to care for Clara without being taken advantage of in the process.
Then there's the product placement which is insanely stupid, like AMC Theaters and Starry paid the director to use their products in the film (several scenes sees Clara drinking Starry with the label turned to the camera, and Miller literally works in an AMC theater) and takes you out of the movie - but so too does the Hallmark-Channel quality story that forces you to feel emotions against your will, leaving you regretting your decision to watch "Regretting You" - or at least being excited to see it anyway.
The Score: B-
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