In the wake of the success of his latest film, The Housemaid, director Paul Feig delivered one of the most on-the-money box office assessments as he reflected on the erotic thriller's $391-million haul on a $35-million budget.
"I don't know how many times in my career I've had to prove to Hollywood that women will show up at movie theatres, but they still do," the Bridesmaids and Spy helmer told The Hollywood Reporter. "The town always seemed (sic) so amazed when women show up. So these movies, I don't know what it's going to take for people to just get it that this is a giant audience out there that just needs to be served."
And served it will be by this latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, one that sees the best-selling author co-write the screenplay of her 2022 page-turner. There's a regular nixer here in the offing.
We're in Wyoming (filmed in Canada, mind) as Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe) arrives home. After a seven-year sentence for vehicular manslaughter.
Kenna has returned in an attempt to see Diem (Zoe Kosovic), the daughter she gave birth to while in prison. Mother and daughter have had no contact, and Diem is being raised by Grace and Patrick (Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford), the parents of Kenna's late boyfriend, Scott (Rudy Pankow).
Also back in town is Scott's best friend, Ledger (Tyriq Withers), a baller turned bar owner who was away with the NFL when Kenna and Scott got together.
He's about to become the man stuck in the middle.
The chemistry gods have smiled on Reminders of Him with the casting of Monroe and Weathers, a pairing that deftly go through the emotional gears of Hoover and co-writer Lauren Levine's script and the will they/won't they intrigue therein. If you can get over the ah-here pretence that Ledger doesn't recognise Kenna because he only saw her mugshot and she now looks 'different', it will be easy to settle into the story.
This is a well-acted, well-paced heartstring-puller with English filmmaker Vanessa Caswill (the BBC's Little Women and the Jodie Comer-starring miniseries Thirteen) proving that she should be a go-to director for Hoover's future adventures in the screen trade.
It won't earn a place in the pantheon, but Reminders of Him does what it does well. To borrow a line from the finale: "Good job."
