On Oct. 24, “Regretting You” was released in theaters, leaving us with only one regret: watching this movie. The film centers on Morgan Grant (played by Allison Williams) and her daughter Clara Grant (played by Mckenna Grace), whose lives are shattered by a tragic car accident that kills Clara’s father, Chris (played by Scott Eastwood), and Morgan’s sister, Jenny (played by Willa Fitzgerald). While this movie strived to portray grief as heartbreaking and meaningful, it ends up taking us through a rushed and, frankly, incredibly predictable story.

The opening scene introduces Morgan Grant, 17 years before the movie is set, with her soon-to-be husband, Chris Grant, and her sister Jenny, with her soon-to-be husband, Jonah, at a party. In a seemingly strong start to the film, the scene shows a warm moment between the friends and deep, emotional connections between Jonah (played by Dave Franco) and Morgan, hinting to a later romantic relationship between the two. As the scene ends, Morgan finds out she’s pregnant with Chris’s baby which transitions us to the next scene 17 years later.

The scene begins with the four friends in the kitchen with obvious tension between Jonah and Morgan, but not romantically. This tension is later revealed to be due to Jonah leaving Jenny when they were kids just to later come back and get her pregnant. This plotline was very poorly explained, with the writers trying to turn a messy relationship from the past into a deep, meaningful moment between the two later in the film, but ultimately just grazing over important details and leaving viewers confused. 

The screen then switches to Clara in the car driving home when she suddenly gets stopped by Miller Adams, a boy from her school who she has liked for a while. She turns the car around and helps him move a sign, then offers him a ride home. After the drive at Miller’s house, the two share a sweet moment before it is revealed that Miller had a girlfriend, turning a seemingly sentimental moment into a shallow and confusing conversation with the girlfriend plot not being explained or even cared about and the whole encounter seeming out of the blue.

Once Clara arrived home, the four friends as well as Clara sit at the table celebrating Morgan’s birthday. It’s then revealed that Clara was with Miller before, and when Clara shares that Miller has a girlfriend, Jenny warns her to never be the other woman. This clearly alludes to her having an affair with Chris, and makes it all the more predictable when Jenny and Chris die in a car crash together just a few scenes later, revealing that they were having an affair together. 

The death triggers sudden feelings between Jonah and Morgan that feel uncanny and hurried, as well as useless plotlines between Miller and Clara. At the funeral, Clara leaves early to find Miller outside (which makes no sense why he’d be there). They go on a drive together where Miller reveals he broke up with his girlfriend, giving no reason for it, but hinting at the fact that it was so he could be with Clara in an effort to seem romantic – that makes no sense considering they had only talked once. While this scene had funny aspects, it felt unrealistic.

The rushed, almost random, relationship between them wasn’t the only flaw in the movie. Morgan and her sister’s husband Jonah, after uncovering the secrets to their spouses affair, find comfort in each other and soon proclaim that they’ve both had undeniable feelings for each other since high school. Although this was meant to come across as romantic, it just felt weird and rushed, triggering many questions for viewers such as how they moved on so quickly and why they didn’t get together all those years ago.

At the same time, Miller and Clara continued to pursue their relationship with the only plotline between them being petty arguments, adding nothing to the story whatsoever except something to keep the viewers entertained – which it did, through filling the story with fluff and making it hard to follow. Along with Clara’s disaster of a relationship, she also had to deal with the grief of losing her aunt and dad, as well as a rocky relationship with her mom that had fallen apart due to discovering her mom’s new relationship with Jonah.

Within a few scenes, however, this problem was miraculously solved with very little effort or explanation – one fight with her mother resulted in Clara forgetting about the grief of losing her father and forgiving her mom and Jonah for loving each other, making the whole plot seem unnecessary and shallow. 

Finally, at the end of the movie, the family, as well as Miller, sit down to watch a film that Miller made for Clara as a homecoming proposal. In the film, we see Miller admit that he has had feelings for Clara for years, which came across as odd due to the fact that he had a girlfriend and also never approached her, despite him being described as popular and confident. This scene ends the movie with everyone happy and all loose ends supposedly being tied, but in reality, the film left huge gaps in the storyline as well as so many unanswered questions – like when did Miller fall in love with her? Why did he never tell her?

As more time elapsed and relationships grew more complex, the plotline continued to expose inconsistencies, and the story grew more predictable and basic with only a few plot twists. The unnecessary plotlines like a side romance between Miller and Clara’s best friends diverted focus from the main stories of the two couples, and dull fights between Clara and Miller felt cheesy, exaggerated, and didn’t add much to the story at all. 

Although the emotive acting and funny scenes kept viewers interested for the time being, the movie fell short of the expectations of book lovers, and people drawn to watch by the craze on social media platforms. Despite how much this movie was portrayed as deep and heartfelt, it ended up being just like every other cringey and b- the-book rom-com.