'Reminders of Him' Review: A Heartfelt Triumph of Never Losing Hope and Overcoming Grief
- 4 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Shauna Bushe - March 17, 2026
Vanessa Caswill’s adaption of Reminders of Him is the latest Colleen Hoover story to hit the screen, delivering a sombre, suffocating weight of an unresolved tragedy. It joins the ranks of fellow Hoover adaptions like the trauma-filled It Ends With Us and the betrayal-infused Regretting You, cementing a signature brand of raw, tearful storytelling.
Reminders of Him is a sorrowful story, centred on Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe), who returns home in Wyoming to restart her life after the tragic vehicle crash that took the life of her former fiancé Scotty Landry (Rudy Pankow). Her singular, desperate goal is to reconnect with her daughter whom she gave birth to in custody, a child she has never been allowed to hold. The plot follows her uphill battle to find a place in a community that refuses to forget her past or forgive her mistake. After striking out when looking for work, Kenna crosses paths with Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers) a bar owner and Scotty’s best-friend. Their connection is immediate but deeply complicated as Ledger becomes the bridge between a women seeking a second chance and the family who believes she doesn’t deserve one.
At its core, the film is a profound meditation on the messiness of living with grief and the weight of loss. The journey Kenna undertakes and the challenges she faces is the ultimate social paradox: how does one atone from an irreversible failure? Each new layer of anguish – the struggle of seeking work with a criminal record, the bittersweet flashbacks of her life with Scotty, and the escalating custody battle over her daughter – is tinged with sentimental sadness. A central motif in the film is Kenna’s practice of writing unsent letters to Scotty. These "reminders" serve as her only outlet for a private confession, illustrating that her path to healing isn't just about public forgiveness, but about reconciling with the ghost of the man she loved.
Maika Monroe delivers a performance that is stripped of vanity, she is a woman who has become accustomed to being small, believing she has forfeited her right to live the life she desperately craves. The cinematography often frames her against the vast, empty landscapes of the town; when Kenna walks back and forth from her home to work, the long, winding roads often emphasize her status as an outsider looking in.
Tyriq Withers acts as the crucial moral compass, offering a performance that balances protective fury with a slow-burning empathy. He must reconcile the memory of his best friend with the reality of the woman who caused his death, navigating the guilt of falling for a person his social circle has deemed irredeemable. Their chemistry isn't built on grand romantic gestures, but on shared silences and the mutual recognition of brokenness.
Furthermore, the film bravely tackles the complexities of the "villains" in the story, Grace Landry (Lauren Graham) and Patrick Landry (Bradly Whitford) who played Scotty’s parents. Rather than painting them as one-dimensional antagonists, the movie portrays their resistance to Kenna as a manifestation of their enduring love for their son, and a fierce, generational need to protect their granddaughter, Diem. This relationship serves as the film’s emotional crucible, testing whether love can truly sprout in soil that has been poisoned by resentment.
Ultimately, Reminders of Him serves as a touching tale on the human capacity for change. While we are all shaped by our darkest mistakes, we are not permanently defined by them. It insists on the hard-won possibility of a new chapter, that a blank a page isn’t a gift but a courageous choice to stop living in the wreckage of yesterday and begin the messy, beautiful process of starting over.
'Reminders of Him' is out now in cinemas.
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