The new movie “Regretting You” is full of incredibly dramatic events that fail to evoke any emotion. There is a big happy family including the daughter Clara, the mother/wife Morgan, the dad/husband Chris, the aunt Jenny and the aunt’s boyfriend Jonah. In the first 20 minutes of the show, the dad and aunt die in a car accident. Obviously it’s sad, but it might as well be happening to a stranger because the viewers know nothing about these characters.
The main plot of the movie rears its ugly head after the accident with a questionable amount of infidelity. The dad and the aunt were having an affair, and died in the middle of an illicit rendez-vous. Jonah breaks down after noticing that his newborn actually has Chris’ smile, insinuating that it’s not actually his child. It’s not completely devious though, because Morgan and Jonah have been in love with each other for 20 years, though it’s unclear whether or not they acted on it. It’s implied that Clara is Jonah’s daughter, but never confirmed.
While the family is making these earth-shattering discoveries, Clara is occupied with Miller, “the coolest guy in school”. Miller and Clare get together right after the car accident which is extremely weird. Despite this, their relationship is sweet and definitely the star of the movie. Miller’s main motive is that he wants to go to film school, but he can’t afford it. His grandfather repeatedly jokes that all that Miller will have to inherit is air. In the very last scene of the movie, it’s revealed that “Gramps” was referencing “air rights,” the control of the vertical space above land in major cities. So, the grandpa made Miller think he had no future and was broke for 18 years just so he could keep making the same bad joke. Miller’s entire personality is being perfect and cool, so he doesn’t seem to be bothered by this revelation.
The whole timeline of this movie was extremely confusing, making it seem like Jonah and Morgan began their relationship a mere week after the untimely death of their respective partners. There were a bunch of other plot points that didn’t make sense, like how Jonah and Chris were apparently best friends after we had only seen them interacting once or how Clara doesn’t seem to question why her aunt and her dad were in a car together before the accident. A lot of these can be explained by the difficulties of book to movie adaptions, which means fitting a lot of content into significantly less space. However, a clearer plot would have been nice considering this movie was two hours long and still, somehow, felt rushed.
Despite this movie failing at being a deeply complex film about grief, it succeeded at being the perfect dumb movie to watch at a sleepover or on a plane. It had a strong cast, with established stars like Allison Williams (Morgan) and Dave Franco (Jonah), as well as up-and-coming actors like Mckenna Grace (Clara) and Mason Thames (Miller). If you are searching for a silly movie that has love, drama, betrayal and is not winning an Oscar anytime soon, look no further than “Regretting You”.