Director: Vanessa Caswill
Cast: Maika Monroe, Tyriq Withers, Rudy Pankow, Lainey Wilson, Lauren Graham, Bradley Whitford
Screenplay: Lauren Levine, Colleen Hoover
114 mins. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, strong language, drug content, some violent content, and brief partial nudity.

The furthering of the Colleen Hoover takeover of romance cinema continues with Reminders of Him, a film that, despite also starring Tyriq Withers, is not a sequel to HIM. Reminders of Him is led by Maika Monroe (Longlegs), an actress who elevates every film she’s in, but unfortunately, not even she can save the overly melodramatic and uninspired romance film that’s almost watchable…almost.

Newly released from prison, Kenna Rowan (Monroe) returns to her hometown, one that carries plenty of emotional baggage. It’s where she fell in love with Scotty (Rudy Pankow, Uncharted), and it’s where that love ended in tragedy. Now, she just wants to find a way to put her life back together and hopefully see the daughter she’s never met. That meeting seems impossible, as both Grace (Lauren Graham, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford, Get Out), the child’s grandparents, want nothing to do with Kenna. Beyond all that, she meets Ledger (Withers), Scotty’s best friend, a man she’s not sure she can trust.

At its very core, Reminders of Him has a weak script that reads more like a rejected Lifetime movie, playing to all the tropes and every character written to perform at an 11 on the intensity scale. The dialogue is disjointed, and the direction is pedestrian, but the central performers aren’t able to do much with the writing, and the entire film collapses due to this central flaw.

It’s a shame, too, as Maika Monroe does about as well as one can do with the material. She has a ferocity to her performance, and she’s believably broken as she tries to confront her demons and build a new life. The sequences where she comes close to that fated meeting with her child are powerful, and it’s the one subplot that director Vanessa Caswill is able to imbue with humanity and tenderness. There’s some solid chemistry between Monroe and Withers, but this thing is just a bit too cliche a bit too often for its own good. Monroe is great, but the movie just can’t match her skills.

Reminders of Him has potential, but it ultimately cannot take flight. Outside of an interesting lead turn from Maika Monroe, the rest of the cast is relatively wasted on a subpar screenplay that gives each little to nothing of captivating character work. While the subplot of trying to connect with her daughter gives Kenna some catharsis, it just isn’t enough to save Reminders of Him. Hell, I’m not sure I’ll remember any of it.

2.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe