Colleen Hoover is this generation’s Nicholas Sparks.

The novelist’s three Hollywood adaptations — It Ends with Us, Regretting You, and now Reminders of Him (Her Titles End with Pronouns) — boast soap-opera plots, albeit treated like rom-coms. While this combination can be ironically amusing, they (intentionally?) leave dramatic meat on the bone, in favor of (crowd-pleasing) formulas that are easier to emotionally categorize.  

Reminders of Him presents multiple examples.

First off, of the main (adult) characters, Maika Monroe’s arc is the least complicated, compared to the conundrums of her love interest (Tyriq Withers) and in-laws (Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford). If the movie wanted to tread into thornier territory, the script could’ve amped up her culpability over her ex’s death, or have her behave in a manner that questions her maternal viability.

But then we wouldn’t be in the world of CoHo.