{"id":14173,"date":"2026-03-14T00:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T04:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14173"},"modified":"2026-05-09T21:12:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T01:12:35","slug":"reminders-of-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/03\/14\/reminders-of-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Reminders of Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Reminders of Him<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual content, strong language, drug content, some violent content, brief partial nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Vanessa Caswill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Colleen Hoover and Lauren Levine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tom Howe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tim Ives\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 13, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Maika Monroe, Tyriq Withers, Rudy Pankow, Lauren Graham, Bradley Whitford, Lainey Wilson, Jennifer Robertson, Zoe Kosovic, Nicholas Duvernay, Monika Myers, Hilary Jardine, Laird Reghenas.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s official. Author Colleen Hoover has claimed the throne once occupied by Nicholas Sparks. From 1999 to 2016, 11 of his novels were adapted for the big screen starting with Message in a Bottle and ending with The Choice. Now Hollywood has turned its attention to Hoover. So far, we\u2019ve gotten cinematic treatments of It Ends with Us (2024) and Regretting You (2025). The former grossed $148.5M while the latter took in $49M. Not too shabby, I guess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The latest Hoover novel to hit the big screen is Reminders of Him<\/strong>. It\u2019s another romantic melodrama, this time centering on a young woman recently released from prison. Kenna Rowan (Monroe, Longlegs) returns home to Laramie, WY after serving time for killing her boyfriend Scotty (Pankow, Outer Banks) in a car accident. She carries with her tremendous guilt because he was the one, the big love of her life. Now all she wants is to meet the daughter she gave birth to shortly after her sentencing. The girl\u2019s guardians, Scotty\u2019s still-grieving parents Grace (Graham, Gilmore Girls) and Patrick (Whitford, The West Wing), won\u2019t allow it. They\u2019re still understandably angry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Romance enters the equation in the form of Ledger (Withers, I Know What You Did Last Summer), local hipster bar owner and Scotty\u2019s best friend. He\u2019s been helping to raise the little girl Diem (Kosovic) since the tragedy. Kenna shows up at his bar looking for a job. He doesn\u2019t recognize her right away which explains why he flirts with her. Ledger realizes who she is when she shows up at the parents\u2019 house to try and meet her kid. He drags her away and takes her back to the motel where she\u2019s been living since she got back. He warns her to stay away. The problem is he can\u2019t stay away from her. It isn\u2019t too, too long before they start seeking comfort in each other\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The situation presents Ledger with a huge dilemma. How can he tell his best friend\u2019s parents he loves the woman that caused their son\u2019s death? Now you\u2019d think the writers, Hoover and Lauren Levine, would spend time on this part of the story. It\u2019s fairly significant. They don\u2019t. Their screenplay is rather unfocused. It covers a lot of ground in the space of just under two hours. No plot thread is developed as fully as it should be. Of course, there\u2019s Kenna attempting to rebuild her life after six years in prison. She has a hard time finding a job. Nobody wants to hire an ex-con. She needs to prove she\u2019s responsible so she can finally meet her daughter. The grandparents need to find a way to forgive Kenna so they can deal with their own grief. There\u2019s also a subplot involving Kenna\u2019s friendship with an intellectually disabled girl (model Myers) who also lives at the motel. This is all in addition to the flashbacks showing Kenna and Scotty\u2019s relationship. As you can see, it\u2019s a lot and that\u2019s not even all of it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Character development isn\u2019t much better. We learn nothing of Kenna\u2019s past. It\u2019s mentioned in passing that she grew up poor and has no family to speak of. That\u2019s it. All we see is the broken woman trying to fix herself. Ledger (gee, I wonder who he\u2019s named after?) isn\u2019t handled much better. We know he and Scotty were childhood chums. We know he lived (and still lives) right across the street. Where\u2019s his family? Did they neglect him? Abandon him? Die? We don\u2019t know. It\u2019s never explained. Basically what we get in Reminders of Him<\/strong> is a bunch of one-dimensional characters with maybe one or two defining traits.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The performances in Reminders of Him<\/strong> are serviceable with the exception of Monroe. She brings a bit of gravitas to Kenna. We feel her grief and guilt over Scotty. We feel her anguish and anger about being kept away from Diem. She sells it all convincingly. Withers, on the other hand, is completely wooden. He makes Channing Tatum look like the model of emotiveness. Kosovic tends to be cloying as the innocent child in the middle of all the drama. I couldn\u2019t understand half of what she said. As for the rest of the cast, they do okay with what little they have to work with regarding their characters. They\u2019re more character types than anything else.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What really shocked me about Reminders of Him<\/strong> is that there\u2019s no big plot twist. Melodramas like this usually have some kind of big reveal that changes the game. There\u2019s nothing like that here. Not only that, it isn\u2019t until well into the film (close to the end, in fact) that we find out exactly what happened the night Scotty died. It\u2019s a sad story, but nothing shocking.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Vanessa Caswill (Love at First Sight), Reminders of Him<\/strong> is as schmaltzy as soapy melodramas get. It\u2019s plenty flawed, but I kind of like it. Call it a guilty pleasure. The drama, while unfocused, is effective. I like the expansive rustic setting in the Rockies. This means a lot of beautiful scenery in fields or by rivers. It\u2019s better than the usual big city setting. It\u2019s a good-looking movie. I think its intended audience will like this chick flick. At the very least, it will tide Hoover\u2019s fans over until the next adaptation- Verity starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson- this October.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reminders of Him (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual content, strong language, drug content, some violent content, brief partial nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Vanessa Caswill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Colleen Hoover and Lauren Levine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tom Howe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tim Ives\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 13, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Maika Monroe, Tyriq Withers, Rudy Pankow, Lauren Graham, Bradley Whitford, Lainey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Reminders-of-Him-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14176,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173\/revisions\/14176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}