There’s something quietly fascinating about the way the Colleen Hoover cinematic universe has begun to take shape. What once seemed like purely BookTok-bound melodrama has, somewhat improbably, found a foothold on the big screen. The first adaptation arrived under a cloud of off-screen drama that ultimately overshadowed its success, but it also proved that unapologetically sentimental, female-driven romantic melodrama still has an audience. Reminders of Him arrives as the next entry in that pipeline – less splashy, less controversial, and ultimately a modest but surprisingly sweet continuation of the trend.
Directed by Vanessa Caswill and co-written by Hoover with Lauren Levine, the film sticks closely to the emotional blueprint that Hoover fans expect: big feelings, wounded people, and a belief that love – however inconvenient – can carve a path toward redemption.
Maika Monroe, taking a break from the usual horror-leaning material she oft finds herself in, plays Kenna Rowan, a young woman returning to her hometown of Laramie, Wyoming after serving time in prison for a car accident that killed her boyfriend, Scotty Landry (Rudy Pankow). Kenna left prison with nothing: no reputation, no family support and, most painfully, no connection to the daughter she gave birth to while incarcerated. The child, Diem (Zoe Kosovic), has been raised by Scotty’s parents, Grace and Patrick (Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford), who, understandably, want nothing to do with the woman they believe abandoned their son to die.
Kenna’s tentative return places her squarely in the path of Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers), Scotty’s best friend. A former NFL player who has drifted back to his hometown to run a bar and help raise Diem, Ledger initially sees Kenna as an unwelcome disruption to a fragile equilibrium. But grief has strange gravitational pulls, and their wary hostility slowly softens into something far more complicated.
That premise alone asks for a generous suspension of disbelief – most glaringly in the idea that Ledger wouldn’t immediately recognise the woman responsible for his best friend’s death. The film attempts to explain it away with passing references to how different Kenna looked years earlier, but it’s one of several narrative contrivances viewers simply have to accept and move past.
Fortunately, Reminders of Him works best when it stops worrying about logic and leans fully into emotion. Caswill keeps the story focused on the central relationship, allowing the romance between Kenna and Ledger to simmer beneath layers of guilt, resentment and shared grief. Their dynamic has an appealing push-and-pull energy, helped enormously by the chemistry between Monroe and Withers.
Monroe gives Kenna a bruised defiance – someone who knows she’s made catastrophic mistakes but refuses to accept that those mistakes should define the rest of her life. She captures the character’s mix of shame, stubbornness and quiet longing, even when the script occasionally leans into overwrought voiceover through Kenna’s letters to Scotty.
Withers, however, is the film’s anchor. The actor continues to display an effortless charm on screen, grounding Ledger with a relaxed naturalism that keeps the film from tipping too far into soap opera. Even when the character is written a little thinly – much of his emotional expression arriving through soulful stares – Withers makes Ledger feel warm, decent and believably torn between loyalty to the past and a growing connection he can’t quite deny.
Around them, the supporting cast offers flashes of welcome texture. Graham and Whitford bring credible grief and steeliness to Scotty’s parents, while Monika Myers provides gentle comic relief as Kenna’s neighbour, a presence that briefly expands the film’s world beyond its central romance.
Visually, Caswill leans into a soft, wistful aesthetic. Though set in Wyoming, the film’s sweeping mountain backdrops (actually filmed in Calgary) and Americana soundtrack – think Waxahatchee and Kacey Musgraves – create a warm, nostalgic atmosphere that helps smooth over the story’s rougher narrative edges. Occasionally the direction drifts into slightly over-stylised territory, with slow-motion sequences that feel closer to music video montage than lived-in drama, but the overall tone remains inviting.
Where Reminders of Him stumbles is in its adherence to familiar romantic drama mechanics. Misunderstandings pile up with sitcom-like predictability, secrets are withheld longer than common sense would allow, and the inevitable emotional confrontation arrives exactly when you expect it to. Anyone familiar with Hoover’s work will likely see most of the plot beats coming long before they land.
But perhaps that’s part of the appeal. Like many comfortingly familiar melodramas before it, Reminders of Him isn’t trying to reinvent the genre so much as deliver a reliable emotional experience. It’s a film where redemption comes slowly, love emerges from unlikely places and the journey matters more than the destination.
The result is neither revelatory nor disastrous – simply a solid, serviceable romantic drama that understands exactly what it is. It may not escape the clichés that come with adapting a Colleen Hoover novel, but it finds enough sincerity in its performances and enough warmth in its storytelling to make the ride worthwhile.
Predictable? Absolutely. But also heartfelt, occasionally moving, and just sweet enough to earn its place in the growing Hoover-on-screen canon.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Reminders of Him is now screening in Australian theatres.
