Vanessa Caswill’s “Reminders of Him,” based on the 2022 novel by “It Ends With Us” author Colleen Hoover, is the latest in a very long line of love stories that should, by all rights, be only five minutes long. That’s what happens when your whole plot could be resolved by one short, sensible conversation between reasonable adults. It’s easy to judge a film like “Reminders of Him” for how contrived it is. It might even be fun. But it’s not really fair, now is it?
The fact is, in real life and fiction, a lot of people choose to live with their drama instead of going to therapy. Well-intentioned individuals let fears and insecurities get in their way all the time. In the audience, we watch folks like this with a haughty air of objectivity, because we could solve their problems in an instant. But in reality, we all make the same mistakes, at least sometimes, and ignore good advice whenever it doesn’t feel right. Feeling superior to a film like “Reminders of Him” is like throwing stones in a maze full of funhouse mirrors. You’ll get to the end without any trouble, but you’ll miss your chance to look at yourself differently along the way.
“Reminders of Him” stars Maika Monroe as Kenna, an ex-con who moves back to her hometown after serving time for vehicular manslaughter. The guy she killed was her own boyfriend, Scotty, and dang it, she was pregnant at the time. So she had the baby in prison and Scotty’s parents, Patrick (Bradley Whitford) and Grace (Lauren Graham), have raised Kenna’s seven-year-old daughter without her.
Patrick and Grace hate Kenna’s guts. Which makes sense, since they blame her for Scotty’s death, but it’s abundantly clear — thanks to the magic of voice-over and flashbacks — that Kenna didn’t deserve to go to prison for it, and Patrick and Grace are clinging way too hard to their grudge. It was a car accident, for crying out loud. What, do they think this was all Kenna’s master plan? Do they think she spent the last seven years in a prison cell thinking, “Haha, it worked?”
Kenna has no parental rights to her daughter, and Patrick and Grace are afraid she’ll abduct the child. Because they assume Kenna is evil incarnate, and not a woman who made one miserable mistake. Again, this could all be solved by one short conversation, which anyone could have had any time in the last seven years, but this isn’t that kind of movie. It’s the kind of movie where Kenna accidentally falls in love with Scotty’s best friend, Ledger, an ex-football player played by Tyriq Withers. At first, Ledger hates her, then he gets to know her, and soon afterwards they want to have sex. But it’s all so danged complicated, so of course they don’t. Not for a while anyway.
Like many a melodramatic smolder marathon, “Reminders of Him” isn’t a case of will they or won’t they. We know they will. But the filmmakers are going to delay their sexual release as long as they possibly can. Some might call this type of storytelling predictable. I think it’s more accurate to call it “edging.” It’s like watching a porno movie where the scene setting up the sexual encounter is two hours long, and weirdly depressing, and then the sex happens off-screen, and then the movie’s over. There’s a lot of mainstream appeal to a film like “Reminders of Him,” but on some level it’s also some kind of kink.
None of this would work, of course, if Maika Monroe and Tyriq Withers didn’t have chemistry. They do, although the portentous and depressing plot sometimes gets in their way. Monroe is so good at exploring Kenna’s soul-crushing depths that, sometimes, it’s hard to focus on anything else. Fortunately, Withers gets to experience a wider range of emotions, so we cling to his vitality whenever the going gets gloomy. Withers has been the best part of several not-great movies over the last year. “Reminders of Him” isn’t great either, but compared to the latest “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and the football-themed horror movie “Him,” it’s probably the not-greatest. (Does that make sense? Whatever, I’m going with it.)
Oh, and yes, you read that correctly: Tyriq Withers plays an ex-football player in “Reminders of Him,” and six months ago he played a football player in a movie called “Him.” So “Reminders of Him” is full of reminders of “Him.” The only connection between these two movies is they were both released by Universal, which is either a huge coincidence or proof that at least one executive over at Lankershim Boulevard has a good sense of humor. Well played, mystery executive. Well played.
“Reminders of Him” isn’t particularly excellent cinema, but it’s effective cinema. It knows what’ll grab us — forbidden love, bitter rivalry, a family torn apart — and it holds us tight. The cast can carry this straightforward storyline, and they imbue it with enough reality to make us a give a damn. It’s suspenseful, but not surprising. It’s involving, but never challenging. It’s sexy, but not sexual. It’s a whole lot of pretty good and not a lot of amazing, but hey, remember how Tyriq Withers also starred in “Him?” No one can say they got the title wrong.
“Reminders of Him” finds itself in theaters on Friday.
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