I’ll admit it. Weeks ago, I heard a half-joking theory that Him, that Marlon Wayans horror flick, and Reminders of Him exist in the same universe. They don’t. Obviously. But the idea stuck in my brain just enough to nudge me toward a movie I probably would have skipped. Add Maika Monroe to the mix, who has quietly become one of the most reliable screen presences working today, and suddenly I’m in. Throw in Colleen Hoover’s track record of emotionally devastating crowd-pleasers, and yeah, this starts looking like a “watch it with your mom and pretend you’re not crying” situation.
The movie itself plays exactly where you expect, but not in a bad way. It’s melodrama, clean and simple. Kenna, played by Monroe, is fresh out of prison and trying to rebuild a life that no longer has a place for her. There’s a daughter she doesn’t know, a past she can’t outrun, and a town that would rather she disappear again. Then comes Ledger, played by Tyriq Withers, the kind of soft-spoken stability that Colleen Hoover characters treat like oxygen.
Monroe does a lot of the heavy lifting here. She’s got that thing where she looks like she might fall apart at any moment, but never fully does. It worked in It Follows, it worked in The Guest, and it works here in a completely different register. This isn’t horror, obviously, but it still taps into that same tension. You’re just waiting for emotional impact instead of a jump scare. Withers plays the counterweight, grounded and patient, and the two of them carry the movie through its more predictable beats.
And yeah, it’s predictable. You can see most of the turns coming from a mile away. But Hoover’s adaptations have figured out something important. The audience isn’t here for surprise. They’re here to feel something, even if they know exactly when it’s coming. This is engineered catharsis. It’s a slow bleed of guilt, forgiveness, and second chances until the movie finally lets you breathe.
Where things get more interesting, at least for me, is the physical release. Because this is exactly the kind of movie that actually benefits from existing on a shelf.
Universal didn’t treat this like a throwaway disc. The Blu-ray lands with a solid technical presentation. You’re getting a 2.39:1 widescreen transfer that keeps the film’s warm, slightly muted palette intact, and a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track that does more than you’d expect from a dialogue-heavy drama.
It’s not a sonic showcase, but the score and quieter moments have space to breathe, which matters for a movie that lives and dies on tone.
The bonus features are where the package actually justifies itself. You’re getting deleted scenes that expand character beats rather than just padding runtime, which is always a good sign. Stuff like Kenna meeting the Landrys for dinner or smaller character moments adds texture if you’re already invested.
Then there’s the featurettes.
The Path to Redemption leans into the emotional core and character arcs.
Turning the Page focuses on Hoover’s involvement, which BookTok fans will absolutely eat up.
Our Adventure is the standard making-of, but it’s still worth it for seeing how this kind of emotionally heavy story gets assembled piece by piece.
This is cozy physical media. That’s the best way to put it. It’s the kind of disc you throw on a rainy Sunday, not the kind you use to demo your surround sound system. And there’s value in that. In a world where movies like this get dumped onto streaming and forgotten in a week, having a tangible version with actual extras makes it feel like it matters a little more.
Is Reminders of Him going to convert anyone who already rolls their eyes at this genre? Probably not. But if you’re even slightly in the bag for Hoover’s brand of emotional storytelling, or if you just appreciate a mid-budget drama that takes its characters seriously, this works.
And honestly, the physical release seals the deal. It’s a good-looking disc, it sounds solid, and it comes packed with enough extras to make it feel like more than background noise content. That alone puts it ahead of half the stuff dropping straight to digital.
Bottom line. It’s exactly what it sets out to be. A little predictable, a little manipulative, occasionally very effective, and surprisingly worth owning if this is your lane.
Jessie Hobson