We don’t talk enough about how difficult it is to make a good or interesting romance film. Critics will often bicker over whether it’s comedy or drama that’s the hardest and, to be sure, each genre has its challenges. But to succeed in a romantic film means that you’ve managed both broad appeal and spoken to the lovers of the genre (no pun intended) while also managing to strike the correct tone without going full Lifetime Original Movie. Josh Boone’s “Regretting You” doesn’t perfectly thread that needle, but it gets the job done passably enough.
Boone returns to the genre after his 2014 hit “The Fault in Our Stars,” but, thankfully, “Regretting You” is far less emotionally manipulative. This particular outing follows four key players as they deal with the fallout after tragic loss brought about by way of terrible deception. Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) is a grieving widow trying to do what’s best for her daughter Clara (McKenna Grace) while also trying to juggle her emotions with longtime best friend and widower Jonah (Dave Franco) and the complications of her daughter possibly finding her first love in Miller (Mason Thames). Each member of the ensemble delivers solid performances, with young Thames standing out as he continues his trend of quiet but empathetic characters.
Obviously, it all comes down to the chemistry in a film like this. Thames and Grace’s longstanding friendship — Or is it a relationship? We still don’t know. Those kids will tell us when they’re good and ready — works in their favor here, as their connection is evident in every scene they share. Williams and Franco also share a perfectly believable rapport with one another, though one that is understandably different from the teens’ starry-eyed honeymoon phase. Regardless of the maturity of the pairing, the believability of each intimate scene is fully reliant on the actors’ comfort with one another.
Which is to say that intimacy coordinator Kristina Arjona had a lot to do in this film. After all, being close in real life does not always translate (and is sometimes an active hurdle) when it comes to shooting romantic scenes. Intimacy coordinators have become more critical in any romantic role and are thankfully becoming more common, but Arjona’s involvement with the project is especially necessary given the ages of Thames and Grace.
Beyond the intimacy, certain enjoyment levels will be determined by whether you see traditional romance tropes as a feature or a bug. Both the one that got away and friends to lovers play into the overall narrative in a way that isn’t overly cloying. However, “Regretting You” has a heavy reliance on miscommunication as a story device that gets particularly grating halfway through the film and remains a constant until the story’s climax. The aforementioned performances give you the opportunity to continue to care about the characters throughout these beats, but only just.
As far as the aforementioned emotional manipulation is concerned, “Regretting You” uses it as a character decision (albeit unintentionally, kids are young and stupid and don’t know how to regulate their emotions yet) rather than a plot device. There is a galaxy of difference between making your characters flawed and trying to get cheap tears from your audience. This film will make you cry, but each moment is earned and born from your love of the characters.
That love is established quickly by Boone making this world feel lived in almost immediately. Once the story pops to the present (17 years after the first few moments of the film), you join the Grant family in relative chaos as they bustle about for a birthday, bicker at each other, establish inside jokes and highlight small quirks without drawing constant attention or feeling the need to overexplain. A great example here is Morgan’s love for watermelon jolly ranchers, (a running bit throughout the film), and Morgan and Clara’s mother/daughter moodboard that they update each birthday with new goals and achievements. “Regretting You” has a running time that pushes almost two hours, but in place of extensive exposition, these tiny, unexplained moments are critical to your appreciation of the Grant family’s story.
Frankly, the pacing is a surprising success here. There are very few reasons for a movie like “Regretting You” to be nearly two hours long, but the film is ultimately telling three stories of connection between Morgan and Clara, Clara and Miller, and Jonah and Morgan. By balancing the three arcs successfully, the film does, shockingly, earn its runtime.
In the end, everything special about “Regretting You” comes down to the performances of Williams, Grace, Thames and Franco. The story — outside of the obnoxiously constant miscommunication — lays the foundation, but the emotion each actor brings to the role is ultimately what anchors the film. By getting you to immediately care about the characters, there’s simply no choice but to cry when they cry and laugh when they laugh. Romance films are hard, but this one does, ultimately, pull it off.
A Paramount Pictures release, “Regretting You” opens exclusively in theaters on Oct. 24.
