Reminders of Him review – contrived Colleen Hoover romance has its charms

The third big screen adaptation of the BookTok-loved author’s novels is ludicrously plotted yet slickly made and easily consumed Nearly two years on, it seems we’re still futilely chasing the high of summer 2024. Charli xcx’s hedonistic Brat-era mockumentary just flopped on the big screen. Espresso still plays at the grocery store but doesn’t hit the same. Kamala Harris is maybe considering a run for something. And the movie It Ends With Us, the glossy adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel that became a somewhat surprise late-summer blockbuster, refuses to die. That film, directed by Justin Baldoni and starring Blake Lively, should have been a Hollywood success story: a deceptively sharp melodrama that proved that frankly sentimental, female-led, 90s-style studio fare could still draw audiences to cinemas, that schlocky BookTok material need not necessarily beget schlocky movies and that Lively could appeal to the Target demographic. Nevertheless, it cast a dark shadow. The legal mudslinging over Baldoni’s alleged sexual harassment on set has tainted primarily her reputation, and extinguished any box office glow. (Lively v Baldoni – her case, not his, as the latter was d