Regretting You (2025)

Another romantic drama based on a novel from Colleen Hoover, who seems to be quite the hot commodity when it comes to movie adaptations at the moment, Regretting You is a film that I didn't entirely dislike, but I couldn't fully enjoy. I tried to figure out exactly what the film was doing to turn me off, but I couldn't out my finger on it. Then it struck me. This is a film focused on a couple of teens that spends far too much of the runtime also showing us the lives of the adults. And it almost infantilises those adults, turning them into people simply cosplaying their own teen storylines alongside the actual teens.

Mckenna Grace is Clara Grant, daughter of Morgan (Allison Williams) and Chris (Scott Eastwood). Clara is going through some standard teen stuff, although that now includes an interesting development after an encounter with Miller Adams (Mason Thames), but she doesn't always want to confide in her mother. That's why she is happy to also have her Aunt Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), who appears to be happily married to Jonah (Dave Franco). Happiness is fleeting though, and Clara has her world turned upside-down when her father and her aunt both die in a car crash, creating a lot of pain and a need to reframe every memory held by Clara, Morgan, and Joshua.

Directed by Josh Boone (who has, let's say, mixed results throughout his filmography), this is standard stuff for anyone who knows what they're getting into. If you're familiar with Colleen Hoover, or if you've seen any of the films based on the works of Nicholas Sparks, then you'll know the mix of melodrama and gentle humour here. Whatever is happening is always BIG, it's love and hate stuff, life and death, and there are many silver linings to be seen amidst the gathering stormclouds.

Writer Susan McMartin struggles to adapt material that may well work better on the page, considering the time jump that starts things off and the frankly bizarre relationship complications that we watch playing out, but at least the younger cast members make the most of things.

Both Grace and Thames are performers I have enjoyed watching over the past few years, and seeing them used as nominal leads here is more satisfying than anything else in the film. Both do well with what they're given, and they get on with one another in a way that feels impressively natural. Williams is decent enough in her role, and certainly does much better work than Franco, Fitzgerald, or Eastwood, and there's another bonus point here for giving supporting roles to wonderful relative newcomer Sam Morelos and wonderful old-timer Clancy Brown.

Watch this in the right frame of mind, or in the right company, and you might appreciate the emotions of it all, the moments that have characters acting cute, and the infrequent laughs. Watch it in a bad mood though and you'll probably struggle to stop yourself from smashing your screen, particularly during the many times things slow right down to show Franco brooding more, either in the foreground or loitering behind another character he seems unable to be honest with.

5/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

The New Mutants (2020)

It seems strange to start 2021 with my review of The New Mutants, a film that seemed destined, at one point, to never actually get itself a proper release. It was delayed time and again, and eventually appeared on VOD platforms last week here in the UK. There were already a lot of damning reviews, which I am sure have put people off from wanting to see it. Like many films that have become an easy target for critics, it's not as bad as it has been made out to be. It's not great, but the main premise is an interesting way to take characters like this and deliver something a bit different from the usual superhero outings.

Blu Hunt plays Dani Moonstar, a young woman who wakes up in a facility being run by Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga). The other youngsters in the facility are Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), and Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga). Each one of these people has a unique super-power, and Dr. Reyes says that she is helping them learn to control their powers before they can move to another facility. Nobody knows what Dani's power is, although it soon becomes clear when the others end up having encounters with their worst fears.

Directed by Josh Boone, who also co-wrote the script with Knate Lee, The New Mutants has some obvious flaws, but it cannot be faulted for the interesting angle, and the consistency of tone. This is a dark thriller, at its best when conjuring up images that wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie, and the fact that neither Boone nor Lee have had any previous experience with superhero movies is a big bonus. If you're looking for big, bombastic, set-pieces then this is not the film for you, although the third act delivers an impressive battle between the leads and a main villain, but it's definitely one to enjoy if you're wanting an origin tale with a very different flavour. And no real need to actually deliver any details of origins.

Most of the problems come from the acting, unfortunately. This isn't a bad cast, not on paper, but a number of key players aren't used well. Williams is given a Scottish accent, because that is the character as written for the comics (although I think diverging slightly would probably not have upset too many people). Taylor-Joy has to be a grumpy Russian. And Heaton plays his character like the abandoned son of Jordy Verrill. I wouldn't have been surprised if his origin story had involved him discovering some green goo and exclaiming "meteor shit!". Braga, Hunt, and Zaga don't seem to be putting on any accents, but, out of the three, it's only Hunt who gets to play a character as interesting as that played by Williams or Taylor-Joy.

The rest of the problems come from certain decisions made with the plotting, and who ends up being pitted against our "heroes" in the finale. Although it's all done well enough, everything would have been a bit more satisfying with a better villain. Even if they were just clearly working directly behind the scenes (there's a backstory teased out, which could have worked out well in the planned trilogy we're now never going to see, but it doesn't really factor into the grand finale). It's also a shame to know that this is a compromised vision, more so than any other films that have had fans shouting for any director's cuts. Unlike certain other titles I could mention, I'd very much like to see a version of this film without any interference, or limitations.

It's easy to see why this didn't really find an audience, and Boone and Lee don't always do themselves any favours, but I recommend at least giving this one viewing. It's something a bit different, and has some interesting ideas in the mix. Which isn't something you can say about most superhero movies, however good they otherwise are.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews