Colleen Hoover's Regretting You is finally getting the big screen treatment, bringing its plot of romance, betrayal, and family to theaters around the world. Based on Hoover's 2019 novel of the same name, the film brings yet another of the beloved author's literary epics to the silver screen (following up on last year's It Ends with Us).
The best-selling romantic drama follows 35-year-old mother Morgan (played by Allison Williams) and her teenage daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace). After years of conflict, their relationship is pushed to the brink when Morgan's husband and Clara's dad, Chris, turns up dead. This causes new romances to be sparked, secrets to be uncovered, and a whole family to be changed forever.
The Regretting You movie comes to theaters on October 24, 2025. The new movie is the latest film adaptation of one of the ultra-viral author Colleen Hoover's books, this one coming from The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone.
Every Major Regretting You Spoiler
The Car Accident That Starts It All
The crux of Regretting You centers around a car accident early in the book and the movie's story. In this twist-filled story, fans follow a mother-daughter pairing of Morgan and Clara Grant (played by Allison Williams and Mckenna Grace).
Morgan is a young mother who had her daughter when she was just 18 with her now-husband, Chris. When the book opens, the Grant family is doing fine. Sure, they have their moments (especially between Clara and Morgan), but things seem hunky dory.
That is, until tragedy strikes. In one of the book's most significant early plot spoilers, Chris dies alongside Morgan's sister Jenny after a tragic car accident. This drives an even bigger wedge between Clara and her mom while also bringing some deep, dark secrets to light.
Funeral Scene
Another key piece of the Regretting You story is the budding romance between Clara and local bad boy Miller Adams (played by How to Train Your Dragon actor Mason Thames). After her father's death, Clara finds solace in Miller's company, much to the chagrin of her mother, Morgan.
This young love kicks into high gear following the key funeral set piece that finishes the book's first act. Fans can get a glimpse of this moment in the trailer, which shows Clara storming out of her father's service after having already had to sit through her aunt's funeral mere hours earlier.
Despite barely knowing Clara, Miller attends her father's celebration of life, showing that he may actually have a genuine interest in the book's protagonist. He comforts her outside the church where the funeral is taking place, allowing Clara to open up to someone for the first time since her father turned up dead.
This moment precedes the pair's first real day together, in which Miller takes Clara around town, giving her a brief respite from her grief-riddled day-to-day. This includes Miller buying Clara some weed and letting her let loose just a bit, without the weight of her dad's passing on her shoulders.
The funeral scene is key in the Clara/Miller relationship and massively impacts the dynamic between Clara and her mom. Morgan is wary of Miller because of what happens between him and Clara immediately following the funeral. Morgan becomes aware of Clara smoking weed, knowing it came from Miller. She also assumes it was his presence at the funeral that caused Clara to get up and storm out.
So, with the pair of teenage lovers starting to see romance in their future, this first impression at the funeral lingers on Morgan's mind, filling her with trepidation around Thames' teenage dreamboat, especially considering he seems to have a college girlfriend despite also pursuing Clara.
Did Chris & Jenny Cheat?
Morgan has more to worry about than her daughter's potentially dangerous dalliance in the wake of Chris' death. She has problems of her own to figure out throughout the Regretting You story.
When fans meet Morgan and her family, everything seems like smooth sailing. She is best friends with her sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), she has a solid relationship with her brother-in-law Jonah (Dave Franco), and her marriage seems okay.
However, after that faithful day that left Jenny and Chris dead in a car wreck, some family secrets came to light. In death, Morgan begins to see that the version of Jenny and Chris she had in her head was not exactly an authentic representation of who they were.
Morgan discovers a series of letters hidden away in Chris' toolbox from her sister, revealing that her sister and her husband (two people she trusted implicitly) were secretly having an affair, and that is why they were in the car together, which led to their accident.
Morgan decides it is best to keep this information from her teenage daughter; however, Clara takes this as Morgan hiding things from her and potentially trying to erase Chris from the family's life.
Theater Scene
The entire story culminates in what has come to be known as 'the theater scene' among Colleen Hoover fans. The trailer gives a brief look at how the sequence will play out in the movie, but it does not give too much away.
The theater scene is a final moment of catharsis for both Morgan and Clara as the pair reconciles once and for all. After learning the truth about her dad's infidelity, Clara uses a local performing arts center as a bit of a refuge.
Reserved in her thoughts, Clara begins to ponder why Morgan did what she did. She realizes that her mother has done everything for her entire life to protect her daughter, and keeping her dad's secret hidden from her was not to sully his memory in her teenage head.
Her mother, Morgan, eventually joins Clara in the theater, resulting in an outpouring of emotion unlike anything else in the story. The pair finally hash it out, laying it all on the table.
Clara explains to her mom that she thinks she is no better than her dad because she played a small part in cheating herself, kissing and falling for Miller when he clearly already had a girlfriend when they started their romantic to-and-fro.
Morgan reassures her daughter that we are not our parents and can learn from the mistakes of the past generation. She tells her that even though she has been attracted to other people, including Jonah, and it is all about not giving in to those feelings of temptation. The pair leave the theater as mother and daughter, holding each other arm in arm, seemingly closer than ever.
Clara and Miller continue to date by the end of the book. He has committed to Grace's character and falls even more in love with her as she patches things over with her mom.
