Reminders of Him (2026) Review!!

Synopsis – After prison, Kenna attempts to reconnect with her young daughter but faces resistance from everyone except a bar owner with ties to her child. As they grow closer, Kenna must confront her past mistakes to build a hopeful future.

My Take – I am not sure anyone expected the 2024 adaptation of It Ends with Us to become such a massive box-office success. Its performance not only proved that schlocky BookTok material does not necessarily translate into schlocky films, but also that sentimental, female-led, ’90s-style studio melodramas can still draw audiences to theaters.

More importantly, it raised an intriguing question: could Colleen Hoover become the new Nicholas Sparks when it comes to romance novels being adapted for the screen?

Unfortunately, the film’s success was soon overshadowed by off-screen drama. That narrative only intensified with the diminishing returns of the first follow-up, last year’s Regretting You, which received largely negative reviews from critics despite managing a modest box-office haul of $90.5 million worldwide on a $30 million budget.

So walking into this third attempt at bringing Hoover to the big screen with some skepticism felt justified. Even though it arrives as a less splashy and less controversial offering, it ultimately works as a solid, serviceable romantic drama that charms—provided one meets it with lowered defenses and tempered expectations. Chief among its curiosities is the pairing of two actors primarily associated with horror attempting bruised, tender romance: Tyriq Withers, who appeared in last year’s Jordan Peele produced Him and the ill-conceived sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Maika Monroe, who has become something of a genre favorite since her breakthrough in It Follows (2014).

Directed by Vanessa Caswill (Love at First Sight) and co-written by Hoover alongside Lauren Levine, the film largely sticks to the emotional blueprint fans of the genre expect: big feelings, wounded people, and a belief that love—however inconvenient—can carve a path toward redemption.

Sure, it occasionally stumbles in its adherence to familiar romantic-drama mechanics. Misunderstandings pile up with sitcom-like predictability, secrets are withheld longer than common sense would allow, and the inevitable emotional confrontation arrives exactly when you expect it to.

But I realized that perhaps I have been going at it all wrong and perhaps the predictability is what makes it a part of the appeal. In these uncomfortably dark times, with war looming across much of the world, the film—like many familiar melodramas before it—acts as a comforting watch that is less interested in reinventing the genre than it is in delivering a reliable emotional experience, one where love emerges from unlikely places and the journey ultimately matters more than the destination.

The story follows Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe), a young woman who returns to her hometown of Laramie, Wyoming after serving seven years in prison for a car accident that killed her boyfriend, Scotty Landry (Rudy Pankow). Kenna left prison with nothing: no reputation, no family support and, most painfully, no connection to the daughter she gave birth to while incarcerated. Since then the child, 5-year-old Diem (Zoe Kosovic), has been raised by Scotty’s parents, Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford), who, understandably, want nothing to do with the woman they believe abandoned their son to die.

But after securing a bleak, dingy, motel-style apartment and part-time work as a grocery bagger, Kenna’s tentative return places her squarely in the path of Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers), Scotty’s best friend. A former NFL player who has drifted back to his hometown to run a bar and help raise Diem, Ledger initially sees Kenna as an unwelcome disruption to a fragile equilibrium. But grief has strange gravitational pulls, and their wary hostility slowly softens into something far more complicated.

Indeed, a premise like this inevitably demands a fair amount of suspended disbelief—most notably in the notion that Ledger would fail to recognize the woman responsible for his best friend’s death. The script offers a brief explanation, suggesting Kenna looked very different years earlier, but it ultimately registers as one of several convenient narrative shortcuts the audience is asked to overlook. Thankfully, the film finds firmer footing once it stops trying to justify its mechanics and instead embraces its emotional core.

Here, director Caswill wisely keeps the focus squarely on the relationship at the story’s center, letting the connection between Kenna and Ledger unfold slowly beneath layers of guilt, resentment, and unresolved grief. Their interactions carry a compelling push-and-pull tension that sustains the film’s momentum.

Yes, a more ambitious film might have broadened Kenna’s world—particularly by exploring the challenges of life after prison—but this story remains tightly anchored to the relationship between its two leads, bound together by a complicated and uneasy understanding. There are narrative devices that test one’s patience, especially Kenna’s letters to Scotty delivered through heavy-handed voice-overs. Yet the film also indulges in classic romantic flourishes—like the long-awaited kiss in the rain—that land with satisfying emotional payoff.

Along the way, the story grapples with weighty questions: who truly has the right to grieve in the aftermath of tragedy? Can people genuinely change, or are they forever defined by their worst decisions? And what does forgiveness even look like when the damage done cannot be undone? The film’s most striking moment arrives during a heated exchange between Ledger and Patrick, when Ledger declares, “You’ve taken the worst moment of her life and made it who she is.”

The closing stretch feels somewhat hurried, but by that stage the film has built enough emotional investment to smooth over a few rushed beats. As director Caswill directs with quiet assurance, guiding the story toward a climax that proves more affecting than expected, thanks largely to the sincerity of its performances.

Maika Monroe, taking a break from the usual horror-leaning material she oft finds herself in, stretches out her dramatic muscles to play Kenna and nails the assignment, a woman with a hard shell who is looking for a little grace, a tricky role that’s both flirty and maternal. She captures the character’s mix of shame, stubbornness and quiet longing, even when the script occasionally leans into overwrought voice-over through Kenna’s letters to Scotty.

Tyriq Withers, on the other hand, is magnetic and deeply felt as a good guy torn between honest feelings and fierce loyalty. He brings a relaxed naturalism that keeps the film from tipping too far into soap opera. Even when the character is written a little thinly – much of his emotional expression arriving through soulful stares – Withers makes Ledger feel warm, decent and believably torn between loyalty to the past and a growing connection he can’t quite deny.

In supporting roles, Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford are their usual assured self, bringing credible grief and steeliness to the role of parents who are still grieving the loss of their only child. In smaller roles, Rudy Pankow, Monika Myers, Nicholas Duvernay and Lainey Wilson are effective. On the whole, ‘Reminders of Him’ is as a heartfelt, occasionally affecting romantic drama that succeeds by keeping its ambitions modest and its emotions sincere.