Note: because we interviewed Maddie’s sister, Maddie will be referred to using her first name, and Lucy will be referred to as ‘Poppish’ when we quote her interview.
Anyone who has poked their head into the pop culture scene knows that Colleen Hoover is quite the controversial public figure. Her novels have garnered negative attention in the literary world for their glorified portrayal of relationship abuse, as well as their shocking plot twists and narratives.
To get a better idea of Hoover’s literary perception, Maddie spoke to one of SHS’s AP Literature and English 10 teachers, Courtney Hayden. When asked her opinion of Hoover as a writer, Hayden commented, “I think that a lot of her characters are very underdeveloped and flat. I think she attempts to write complex characters, but she does so in a very lazy way…I think if you want a quick read, it’s good, but she doesn’t take time to dive into the characters, but more so has shock factor with the situation that’s going on.” As for her perception of Hoover as a person, Hayden understands that Hoover is controversial, but is not fully educated on Hoover’s questionable morals: “From what I understand, she has not supported women who have gone through domestic violence or experienced sexual violence in some capacity.”
Despite this negative literary attention, several of Hoover’s novels have been turned into movies. It Ends With Us, released in 2024, garnered significant public attention, both because of the concerning glorifications of physical abuse present in the film, as well as from the ongoing public feud between starring actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Additionally, an adaptation of Hoover’s novel Reminders of Him is set to release in March of this year.
However, these movies are not the focus of this article; over a four-day November weekend, we took a trip to Showcase Cinemas to see the seemingly promising adaptation of Hoover’s novel Regretting You. With our dear friend and SHS senior Mirah Palmer reluctantly in tow, we entered the cinema with a hopeful outlook on this film, as the trailer was captivating and made us wonder if Hoover’s novels are as horrible and flat as readers claim them to be. SHS sophomore Lucy Poppish agreed that the trailer was one of the main reasons she went to see the movie in theatres; when asked if the trailer made the movie seem better than it was, Poppish exclaimed, “YESSSS! 100%. The trailer made it look so good.”
Along with the trailer, we were extremely excited to watch a movie with McKenna Grace and Mason Thames as starring actors. Maddie especially enjoyed Thames’ performance in the stellar adaptation of the animated film How to Train Your Dragon. Additionally, Storm was excited to see Grace’s talents, as they had watched Grace act in Young Sheldon. Lucy Poppish and sophomore Cate Coogan were excited to see Thames and Grace acting together in one movie: “[We] went to see it because we love Mason Thames, and we love McKenna Grace.”
However, dear readers, as you may have gathered from the accompanying image of our before and after reactions to the film, this movie was not a beneficial addition to the ever-growing catalogue of Colleen Hoover–rather, it reaffirmed our beliefs that she is NOT deserving of the attention she gets. To us, the entire movie was just a load of weird plotlines and cringy scenes that came together to make a hilariously horrible movie. Throughout the movie, Palmer’s thoughts were, “Um…‘can this end?’ ‘When will this end?’ ‘When will this stop?’ ‘Why did they make this?’”
The film partially revolves around the romantic relationship between Clara’s mom and…uncle. In Poppish’s words, “Holy incest, bro. I thought it was so odd and weird…[the actors] did not have good on-screen chemistry at all.” We’d like to clarify that the couple has no blood relation, which shouldn’t even be a question; however, this is a Colleen Hoover adaptation–anything is possible. Clara’s Aunt Jenny is married to her high school sweetheart, Jonah. However, Clara’s dad, Chris, was having an affair with Jenny, which resulted in Jenny becoming pregnant and having a lovechild whom Jonah believed was his. Clara’s mom, Morgan, Chris, Jenny, and Jonah all went to high school together.
This plotline we found to be quite interesting, and it could’ve been the start of a very entertaining film…but a shocking plot twist, the first of many, immediately introduced itself. When Chris and Jenny died in a car accident, it was a very heartbreaking moment for all the characters. They all longed for a sense of comfort during that time. Apparently, Hoover believes the best way for Morgan to achieve that comfort is…to begin a relationship with her late sister’s spouse? This entire idea disgusted us and all the people we interviewed. Whenever the film portrayed anything slightly related to their relationship, it was like a boiling pot with a sprinkle of cringe, a dash of disgust, and a whole lot of rage.
Why? Why are we promoting such relationships? Especially in a time where they are both grieving, unearthing an affair that went on for years, and on top of that, they both have children to take care of? It is weird, irresponsible, and traumatizing for Clara, who was closer with aunt Jenny than with her own mother. Though we don’t like Clara all that much, her most understandable reaction to anything in the film was when she found Morgan and Jonah out.
The other main plotline of the movie is the budding romance between Clara and Miller, a classic rebel-high-school-boy-with-a-dark-past character played by Mason Thames. The first scene we see of Miller is him illegally moving a roadside sign as Clara drives past him, eventually stopping to offer him a ride. After this interaction, he purposely lies to his girlfriend to spend more time with Clara. Miller finds Clara at coffee shops and goes to her family’s funeral–not with her, but by himself. (A little weird…but we can excuse that as a kind gesture.)
However, after a while, we simply couldn’t excuse his actions. He kept breaking up and getting back together with his girlfriend to a point where the movie is promoting the idea of cheating. Even when he’s not actively pursuing Clara in a romantic sense, he is still emotionally cheating on his girlfriend; obviously, we find out at the end that he still wants to be with Clara. Additionally, even with two hours of screen time, Miller has no character development whatsoever. Poppish commented, “I was constantly hoping that the characters would have some kind of depth…like Mason Thames’ character, especially. I feel like I knew nothing about him, and he was just a side character.”
Almost every character is unlikable, except for Clara’s friend Lexie. Shout out to Sam Morelos’ acting for making that entire viewing experience at least slightly more bearable. Her on-screen opinions couldn’t have better reflected the sentiments expressed by the real-life audience.
Time to touch on one of the worst characters in the movie, Clara. (Sorry, McKenna Grace–we still love you!) When Morgan and Jonah are officially dating, we start to see Clara’s explosive personality presenting itself. Morgan constantly tells Clara that she doesn’t want her and Miller to be together because of his dad’s past; with this in mind, Clara finds every way to drag Miller into her family drama in order to anger her mom. Miller keeps asking her not to use him for such a thing, a request she acknowledges but doesn’t follow through on.
For Clara’s birthday, the protagonists all had dinner together, including Jonah and Lexie. Clara continues to bring up things about her and Miller that weren’t true to try to get a rise out of her mother. This led Miller to leave and yell at her because she repeatedly manipulated him and their situation. She tells him she’s sorry, but if she were really sorry, she would’ve listened to him in the first place. But that’s too reasonable. They don’t do reasonable things in this movie.
Approximately twenty predictable plot twists later, we reach the epilogue of the movie, where both couples have finally worked out their differences and created prosperous lives together. Miller, about to leave for film school, shows a cute (creepy) little movie/promposal he made for Clara. Apparently, he had a massive crush on her years before they had a human conversation–when Clara finally whisked him up off the side of the country road. This was such a weird way to end the movie; we can understand a hallway crush, but having a crush on a girl you’ve never spoken to before for two consecutive years? That’s just stalker behavior.
The ending solidified our opinion that this movie is just…awful. The writing is awful, the plot is awful, the characters are awful people with no redeeming qualities and no character development–in fact, Ms. Hayden’s sentiments about the overall flatness of Hoover’s literary characters could not have been better proven by the characters in this film. The plot depends on plot twists that are predictable and boring. The storyline–two high school lovers finally get to live out their shared dream of being together after both of their spouses die in a tragic car accident..???–rubbed us the wrong way, and so did the prevalent cheating-positive messaging throughout the film.
In the end, the movie solidified our beliefs that Colleen Hoover is a horrible author, person, and public figure; in Poppish’s words, “Colleen Hoover doesn’t deserve the amount of fame she gets for really, really [horrible] books and really, really poor messages.” We should not continue to offer her movie deals when there are so many amazing novelists out there, hoping for the same opportunity.
Don’t go see this movie–we promise you’ll regret it.