“Regretting You” - Took the words right out of my mouth.

Regretting You is now the second Colleen Hoover novel adaptation I’ve seen, after last year’s It Ends With Us. I hope there isn’t a third adaptation because neither of these movies were what one might describe as “good” or “entertaining” or “worth it.” And like with It Ends With Us, I did not take anyone with me to Regretting You because it’s far funnier to be one of four men in a theater packed with women, watching a movie best described as what if the Lifetime Channel got drunk and fell down the stairs?

By the way, I knew what I was getting into when I RSVP’d for the screening of Regretting You. Not the story itself - I don’t hate myself enough to read a Hoover novel on purpose. But I read the synopsis blurb and saw the movie poster and figured I apparently do hate myself enough to spend two hours in a theater watching another Hoover adaptation.

Hey, all you Hoover fans - are all of her books as depressing as It Ends With Us and Regretting You? Do all of her books include a lost teenage romance, domestic abuse, infidelity, melodramatic happy endings that are only possible after worst-case scenarios, or all of the above? Is this why you drink so much wine in your book clubs?

If it sounds like my cynicism meter is in the red, you are correct. It’s been in the red since roughly five minutes into watching Regretting You. The film starts with high-school aged Morgan (Allison Williams), Jonah (Dave Franco), Chris (Scott Eastwood), and Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) at a party. Morgan and Chris are a couple, Jonah and Jenny are a couple, Morgan and Jenny are sisters, and all of them are friends. This party scene only lasts a couple of minutes, but it’s painfully obvious that Morgan and Jonah love each other (but do nothing about it) and Chris and Jenny are definitely cheating on Morgan and Jonah with each other. And the scene ends with Morgan telling Jonah she’s pregnant.

Seventeen years later, Morgan and Chris are married with their now seventeen-year-old daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace). Jonah and Jenny have recently reunited and have a new baby themselves. While celebrating Morgan’s birthday, Morgan casually remarks how the baby looks exactly like Clara when Clara was a baby. Got it...the baby is the result of Chris still cheating on Morgan with Jenny (Jonah and Morgan don’t figure this out until much later in the film). That sound you hear is the Lifetime Channel doing a keg stand.

The next day, Morgan and Jonah are independently summoned to the hospital, surprised to find each other there, then told that Chris and Jenny were killed in a car accident. Jonah quickly realizes Chris and Jenny were having an affair and Morgan demands Jonah keep it a secret from Clara. To add to the drama, Clara blames herself for the accident because she thinks Jenny was texting and driving while texting with Clara. Oh, and their conversation revolved around Clara liking a boy named Miller (Mason Thames) and Jenny warning Clara not to be the other woman. That sound you hear is the Lifetime Channel hitting the banister at the bottom of the stairs.

Now that Jenny and Chris are out of the picture, it’s only a matter of time before Morgan and Jonah confess their lost love for each other. And it’s only a matter of time before Clara finds out about Chris and Jenny’s affair. And it’s only a matter of time before Clara and Miller bone because they’re seventeen. Nothing in this movie is the least bit surprising and now the Lifetime Channel is now lying unconscious in a pool of its own vomit.

The story isn’t the only thing that made this movie a terrible watch. The acting ranges from a solid Grace, to a very uneven and uncommitted Williams, to mostly literal jaw-clenching from Thames, to a wildly miscast deer-in-headlights Franco. And shoutouts to Eastwood, Fitzgerald, the criminally underutilized Clancy Brown (as Miller’s grandpa), and the criminally overused Sam Morelos (as Clara’s friend) for collecting a paycheck by appearing in this dreck.

On top of that, the tone of the film is all over the place. There’s practically zero consideration of the affair beyond it being a convenient excuse for Morgan and Jenny to barely care that their significant others are dead. Just kick a car a few times, throw a few eggs at an ugly painting, abandon a baby for a couple days, and kick a hole in an annoying door and everything will be right as rain. Even Clara barely grieves for her dead relatives before moving on to a bunch of AMC branded movie dates with Miller. It’s like the movie knows emotions are a thing that exists but has never actually felt any of them.

The moral of the story - mine, not the movie’s - is don’t take a date to see this movie. Or any Hoover film adaptation. And probably don’t read another Hoover book. But do please help the Lifetime Channel get home. They don’t look good.

Rating: Ask for all of your money back and another glass of wine.