Regretting You

Posted on October 23, 2025 at 5:29 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 sexual content, teen drug and alcohol use, and brief strong language
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, including teen drinking and drunkenness, and brief marijuana smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Off-screen fatal car accident, characters killed including parents
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	October 24, 2025

“Regretting You” is not a good movie. It is soapy and insipid. But somehow, thanks to its actors, it is still mildly, wait-for-streaming, watchable.

It begins 17 years ago, with two teenage couples on their way to a beach party. Serious and thoughtful Morgan (Allison Williams) and her fun-loving sister, Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) are dating fun-loving Chris (Scott Eastwood) and serious and thoughtful Jonah (Dave Franco). “How did we end up with our exact opposites?” Jonah asks Morgan as Jenny and Chris drink beer and party by the bonfire. Morgan tells Jonah that she is pregnant.

In present day, Morgan and Chris are married and living in Chris’ childhood home with a 16 year old daughter, Clara (McKenna Grace). The family is gathering for Morgan’s birthday. Jonah has returned to town after a 15 year absence and reunited with Jenny. They have a baby and have decided to get married. It is a warm and loving celebration but there are glimpses of some underlying strains. Chris says, “I’ll wash the dishes,” and Morgan says to herself, “I’ve already done them.” And Morgan is hesitant to express happiness over her sister’s engagement.

On the way to the birthday party, Clara stopped to give “the coolest boy in school” a ride home. He is Miller (Mason Thames, the highlight of the movie), and he lives on a farm with his ailing but peppery grandfather (Clancy Brown).

A terrible accident is followed by revelations of secrets that shatter the surviving characters’ sense of themselves and their history. The question of whether those secrets should be shared with someone they will hurt has no good answers. The characters must struggle with the loss of the people they loved most and with the loss of the sense of trust and purpose and connection they thought they had.

There are some odd choices in the storyline, and too many references to pizza and jolly ranchers (not together, though pineapple and pizza are together), odd or too-on-the-nose choices for what the characters watch on television (“Clueless?” “Our Town?”), and an unnecessarily convenient twist to help resolve things at the end.

Some books are hard to adapt because the lyricism of the prose does not translate to the screen. Others are hard to adapt because we do not realize how much imagination we bring to the spaces left by the writing. This one falls more into the second category. Details that can be glossed over on the page or unconsciously filled in by the reader play differently in a movie, and may come across as abrupt or distracting.

On the other hand, there is the romantic ideal of the boy who adored us before we knew, which may not make sense in terms of reality but plays very satisfyingly in a movie. And there is the charisma of the performers, especially Franco and Thames , which just edges this into the two-screen streamer category.

Parents should know that this movie includes a fatal off-screen car accident, with two sad deaths of parents. It also includes adultery, teen pregnancy, brief strong language and teen adult drinking and drunkenness and brief teen drug use.

Family discussion: Why did Morgan decide not to tell Clara the truth? Was that a good decision? Why didn’t Miller tell Clara how he felt earlier?

If you like this, try: The book by Colleen Hoover and Nicholas Sparks films like “Dear John” and “The Lucky One”

Splitsville

Posted on August 28, 2025 at 12:08 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, sexual content, and graphic nudity
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic scuffles
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 29, 2025

Writer-director-star Michael Angelo Covino and his co-screenwriter and co-star Kyle Marvin have now made a second movie about a man who has sex with his friend’s romantic partner. In their last film, “The Climb,” a character confesses he has slept with his friend’s fiancée. In “Splitsville,” Carey (Covino) confesses he has slept with his friend’s wife. In both films, the focus is on the impact this has on the friendship of the two men, and it is mostly played for goofy comedy based on the cluelessness of the characters in various categories of adulting.

Carey and Ashley (Adria Arjona), his wife of 14 months, are driving to the beach house owned by Paul (Marvin) and his wife, Julie (Dakota Johnson). They are happily singing along to “What a Fool Believes” by the Doobie Brothers when they witness a terrible accident. This prompts Ashley to reach for a letter she has been working on (as she reads it aloud, she has to correct herself from the text’s “13 months”) telling Carey she wants a divorce and that she has repeatedly been unfaithful.

He is devastated. Paul and Julie do their best to comfort him. And they tell him they have an open marriage and allow each other to have sex with anyone they want, and Paul casually says he’d even be all right with it if Carey and Julie had sex. The next night, when Paul is away, Carey and Julie do. The next morning, Carey confesses and Paul is not all right with it. They get into a ridiculously chaotic scuffle, getting hurt and causing a lot of damage in the house.

Like the earlier film, “Splitsville” separates its chapters with mildly arch title cards, which occur over some indeterminate but apparently years-long period. Russ (Simon Webster), the son of Paul and Julie and a student at the private school where Casey is a PE teacher, does not get any older during this period, but this is not a movie where details like this matter. It’s more a “you know what would be funny?” kind of film, sketchy in both senses of the word.

Casey and Paul have been friends since childhood apparently out of inertia and the inability to make any other friends. Casey is good-hearted, considerate, honorable, and kind to a fault. Paul is none of those things. When Russ gets in trouble, his father tells him to lie and Casey advises him to tell the truth, then lies himself to take the blame. A lot of the humor in the film comes from the oddball slacker quality of the two leads. One example is that fight scene, which goes from slaps to low-level martial arts to a pause to rescue Russ’ fish after they crash the tank. They are very low key about situations most people would consider very high-intensity. The female characters are under-written, really there just to provide something for the men to react to.

Carey persuades Ashley not to get divorced, but continue to live together, with him sleeping on the sofa, she in the bed with a series of sexual partners. Casey is so agreeable, he invites them all to stay on in the house, scheduling movie nights (“Lorenzo’s Oil” is popular). While Ashley is a life coach and has a life coach of her own, it is Casey who is becoming something of a mentor to the discarded lovers. There are a bunch of very funny situations and comments. It just does not amount to much.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language, explicit sexual references and non-explicit situations, graphic nudity, drinking, adultery, crimes, bullying, and adult themes.

Family discussion: What will happen to the couples after the movie? If you wrote a script with your best friend, what would it be about?

If you like this, try: “The Climb” and “Oh, Hello”

My Dead Friend Zoe

Posted on February 27, 2025 at 12:40 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	War violence, suicide, mostly offscreen
Diversity Issues:	Some sexist and harassing characters
Date Released to Theaters:	February 28, 2025

Sonequa Martin-Green gives an exquisite, unforgettable performance in a story of love, grief, memory, and healing, “My Dead Friend Zoe.” First-time writer/director Kyle Hausemann-Stokes was a Bronze Star-awarded paratrooper in the US Army who served as a convoy commander in Iraq. He brings enormous specificity and understanding to an “inspired by a true story” film, with Martin-Green as Merit, a veteran struggling with PTSD. As she says, her struggle is not over “an incident but a person.”

That person is Zoe, played with warmth and bone-dry humor by Natalie Morales. Merit and Zoe have the kind of deep connection that comes from a similar response to intense and terrifying circumstances rather than some of the factors that sustain other friendships like interests in common. The way they talk to each other shows that their rhythms synch perfectly. They can finish each other’s thoughts; they are endlessly supportive through and in spite of perpetual teasing; they can switch seamlessly from joking to, if not seriousness, joking grounded by sincerity. When male soldiers demean Merit with sexist remarks, Zoe stands up for her friend, even though they outrank her. They utterly trust and rely on each other.

For that reason, Merit does not see that they have differences of increasing importance as their terms of service are ending.

Or rather, did not see. As the movie begins, Merit’s service has ended and she is back at home, profoundly traumatized. She will not let herself remember how her best friend Zoe died. Instead, she is awash in memories so vivid she feels like Zoe is still with her. And she likes that feeling. She is not ready to let Zoe go.

We can see why. Morales, always endlessly appealing on screen and here in a perfect role, the warm, wise-cracking, ride or die friend we would all love to have, imaginary if necessary.

Hausemann-Stokes depicts the imaginary character with assurance and exceptional delicacy, especially impressive for a first-time writer/director. It would be easy to make this concept intrusive or unintentionally funny. But we can see, thanks to sensitive writing and Martin-Green’s extraordinary performance. Oscar-winners Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris show up to provide able support. Freeman plays a support group counselor and Harris is Merit’s grandfather, Dale, a veteran whose service inspired Merit to enlist and whose early dementia is both another source of loss and a possibility of finding some purpose. Their scene together in a boat on the lake near his home is especially moving and one of many graceful moments that expand our understanding and move the characters forward.

Merit meets Alex (wonderfully appealing Utkarsh Ambudkar) and their immediate connection gives her the first sense of future possibilities, her first reason to think about leaving Zoe in the past. Hausemann-Stokes and his brilliant cast get the details right to bring us into this world and expand our understanding of our own struggles with loss.

Parents should know that this movie deals with wartime peril and violence, suicide, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Characters drink, smoke, and use very strong language. A character has dementia and there is family stress.

Family discussion: What is survivor guilt? How does Dale help Merit think about memory and loss? Why didn’t Merit know what Zoe was worried about?

If you like this, try: “The Outpost” and “Thank You for Your Service”

Here

Posted on October 31, 2024 at 12:33 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	ated PG-13 for thematic material, some suggestive material, brief strong language and smoking
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and alcohol abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad deaths and medical problems, references to wartime injuries and deaths
Diversity Issues:	Treatment of BIOPC characters superficial
Date Released to Theaters:	November 1, 2024

Near the end of the multi-generational saga “Here,” a character mentions that the time he spent caring for his difficult father in his last years helped them have a better, more understanding relationship. This is tell, not show, the opposite of what a movie is supposed to do. In this case, that really important part, the show part, is a lower priority than the movie’s conceptual and technology gimmicks.

“Here” is based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire. Its conceit (in both senses of the word) is that the whole story takes place on one spot, going back millions of years, before there was any life on Earth, then with plants, then dinosaurs trampling across, then people, an indigenous couple, a Colonial era man (the royalist son of Ben Franklin) and the enslaved people who resignedly salute him as his carriage passes. A house in what will be the suburbs is built in 1911. Its first owners are a Victorian couple, then an inventor and his devoted wife, much later a Black family in contemporary times, and, in between the central focus, a WWII veteran and his wife, and their three children, one who grows up to be played by Tom Hanks, de-aged by CGI, then looking like he lives now, then aged to show how he may/will look in 20 years. The content of these stories is designed to trigger reactions more based on our own experiences of the big life moments — love, loss, job woes, marriage, family conflict, Thanksgiving, babies, aging parents, more Thanksgivings, a wedding, a funeral — than on any connection to these characters. Our hearts may be tugged at because we are humans who cannot help identifying with these touchstones, but it’s all as synthetic as astroturf.

This film reunites the “Forrest Gump” team, Hanks as Richard and Robin Wright as his wife, Margaret, along with composer Alan Silvestri, cinematographer Don Burgess, screenwriter Eric Roth, and director Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the screenplay. Zemeckis, as he does too often, seems far more interested here in the technology than the storyline. The camera placement is static, always the same location in the house’s living room, facing the bay window across from what was once the Colonial plantation. Unlike the images in a graphic novel, movies have to have movement; it;’s in the name. So what we have is a lot of boxes coming in and out of the screen with glimpses of what is happening or did happen that may be contrast or commentary on the cyclicality of events or may just be there to remind us what time we’re in: the Beatles on Ed Sullivan! Jane Fonda’s exercise tapes! And then there are the technology touchstones. Radio, then television. The first cordless phone.

It reminded me of the Carousel of Progress at Disney World, and to be honest, the animatronic characters in that revolving audience show created for the New York World’s Fair in 1964, have more personality than most of the one-attribute characters in “Here.” That is unfortunately even more true of the characters of color in the film. The Black family seems to be there only to show us The Talk with their teenage son about how to behave if he gets pulled over by the police for a traffic violation. Their Latina housekeeper exists only to show us the pandemic. The indigenous people are like the dinosaurs — they exist only to disappear.

Parents should know that this film includes many family ups and downs including conflicts, divorce, serious illness, and death. There is a teenage pregnancy. A WWII veteran with injuries and PTSD self-medicates with alcohol. A young husband and father dies. There are sexual references, scanty attire, references to racism, and some strong language.

Family discussion: What would you want to say to the families who live in this house? Why didn’t Richard want to move? How did the characters decide to compromise on their dreams?

If you like this, try: the book by Richard McGuire, the Thornton Wilder play “The Long Christmas Dinner,” and the 1961 short film “The House”

It Ends With Us

Posted on August 8, 2024 at 5:30 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for domestic violence, sexual content and some strong language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Domestic violence is frankly but discreetly portrayed, some serious injuries
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 9, 2024
Date Released to DVD:	December 3, 2024

For the handful of people who do not know this, It Ends With Us is a wildly popular book by Colleen Hoover, a social worker who began her career as an author by self-publishing. She was one of the early BookTok success stories, and has now published more than 20 books (plus a jewelry collection, press-on nails, and a non-profit that has donated over $1 million to promote love of reading). In 2022 her books held six of the top ten spots on the New York Times paperback fiction best seller list. She has called It Ends With Us, published in 2016, the most difficult because of its themes of domestic abuse, and it is her most popular, with a sequel called It Starts With Us.

Hoover and star Blake Lively produced the film version of the book, and it was directed by Lively’s co-star, Justin Baldoni. And so, with one exception, this is as close as a filmed version of a novel can be to a book, scene by scene, line by line. The fans of the novel who were in the audience at the screening I saw thought this was just fine, and they sighed happily along. Those unfamiliar with the story or less committed to admittedly soapy melodrama may enjoy the Hollywood gloss but come away less satisfied.

We first see Lily Blossom Bloom (Lively) on her way to her father’s funeral, greeting her mother, who is dressed in black, at the door of an imposing suburban house in Maine. Even though it is very clear where she is and why, this movie does not leave anything unsaid that can be said, and so Lily’s mother (Amy Morton) has to tell her daughter that she is glad she has arrived for her father’s funeral but sorry she was not there in time to say goodbye. Lily is supposed to give a eulogy, and her mother tells her just to say the five things she loved most about her dad. At the pulpit, she looks down at a napkin with 1 though 5 listed but without any words next to them. She leaves the church without speaking and returns to Boston.

Lily is about to make her lifelong dream come true, and open up a flower shop called, yes, Lily’s Blooms. As she clears out the store to get ready, she meets Allysa (Jenny Slate, by far the most appealing character in the story), a wealthy young married woman who impulsively agrees to go to work in the shop and instantly becomes Lily’s best friend.

Allysa’s husband (Hasan Mainhaj in his second perfect husband role in a row, following “Babes”) and brother (director/star Baldoni) come to the shop and Lily realizes that her new friend’s brother, Ryle ( Hoover gets character names straight from Bodice Ripper Central) is the handsome neurosurgeon she had a very meaningful encounter with on a rooftop, where she went to think about her father. The anonymity and their mutual hotness allowed them to share some intimate secrets (“naked truths”) and it was about to get steamy when he was called to the hospital for an emergency.

This re-meeting gets things back in gear, even though there are more red flags than in a year of NASCAR races. For example: the first seconds of Ryle’s appearance on screen he is furiously kicking a chair. Then he tells Lily he is only interested in sex, not relationships. Then Alyssa warns her. But a gal loves a challenge, so Lily slows his roll and he is almost instantly besotted.

We go back and forth to Lily’s past (played by Isabela Ferrer), where we see her devastated by her father’s abuse of her mother and her kindness in reaching out to a homeless classmate named, wait for it, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar in the present, Alex Neustaedter in the past). They fall in love but are separated by a violent attack.

Lily loves Ryle, but his insecurity and volatile temper keep her on eggshells. The film’s best insight is how easy it is for Lily to slide into feeling she is responsible for managing Ryle’s moods and accommodating his demands. Will the pattern of domestic violence stop with them? How?

The production values, like the storyline, hark back to the lush “for the ladies” films of the 50s, with expensive settings and some….choices by costume designer Eric Daman (Lily’s boots! Alyssa’s sequins!). There are many shots of the sun rising or setting over water. There are many lines of dialogue explaining what we have already gleaned from seeing.. A reader can fill in the blanks in a book as though it’s a Roarshach ink blot. If it is not carefully done (“The Bridges of Madison County” is a good example), an on screen depiction can reveal the thinness of the characterizations and revelations.

Lively brings radiance to the role, but she is stronger when she really lets loose in devilish mode (looking forward to “A Simple Favor 2.” Lily is relegated to nervous laughs, low-level quips, nervously reassuring Ryle, and growing understanding of her situation. Her co-stars are handsome in the way 40’s and 50’s divas played opposite actors who had just enough chemistry to be believable without detracting from their luster. This makes it watchable but not especially memorable.

Parents should know that this film includes strong language, sexual references and situations, and domestic violence with sexual assault and serious injury. Characters drink and smoke.

Family discussion: How was Lily different from her mother? Why did she visit her father’s grave? What will happen next?

If you like this, try: Colleen Hoover’s books and classic older films like “My Reputation” and “Now Voyager”