The Audience Is Loving Reminders Of Him Way More Than The Critics Did (And I Think It's Obvious Why)

Colleen Hoover has had a slew of book-to-screen adaptations in the works or made for the big screen lately, and there’s only more to come with the Verity adaptation slated for later this year. Her latest is the quiet romance Reminders of Him quietly only hit No. 2 at the box office on opening weekend, but it's racking up pretty large numbers for a movie made on a relatively small budget. The audience is loving it far more than the critics did, and I think it’s obvious why.

Reminders of Him currently has a 54% Rotten Tomatoes score from the critics. That lands it squarely in splat territory. It’s also a reminder that there are sometimes wide discrepancies between critics (who hate predictability) and audiences (who crave it). That’s exactly the reason I think the audience has given Reminders of Him an 89% audience score, landing it squarely in the fresh territory.

I saw Reminders of Him a week ago, and I thought it really over-indexed for being a romance movie with a smaller budget. Despite it’s tragic storyline, the movie was more fun than expected and anchored in solid performances from its leads (and Lauren Graham). Having not watched OBX and having only seen Maika Monroe as a scream queen, I went into this with few expectations and was rewarded with a movie that was gentle, pleasant, and easy to follow. It’s not breaking new ground and probably won’t make the list of best rom-coms of all time, but there is a built-in audience for this type of content, and I’m glad to see it making money at the box office.

I think the film works for exactly the same reason critics hate it. In our Reminders of Him review roundup, we noted reviewers calling it “hokum,” which is to say trite. Yet, I think the breezy and sentimental way the story is handled is exactly why viewers are showing up for the movie. It’s the reason people showed up for Regretting You despite critics pointing out its “cheesiness,” too.

Reminders of Him was reportedly made on a $25 million budget (not counting P&E), and it made $18 million opening weekend. At the time of this writing, it’s made over $30 million globally, and is well on its way to profitability both for itself and the theaters taking a percentage of the profits. It’s a rare example of a mid-budget movie that can make a return on its investment, and it does so (I’d argue) precisely because it is a genre film with a built-in audience that's rabid for new content.

Ben Affleck’s been running around talking about how this sort of movie is dying out, or heading to streaming only, but here is Reminders of Him operating as the little engine that could. Other genre fiction, including horror, has proven it’s possible. If only we could get enough of these little movies on the tracks to keep theaters sustained between the big money-making Spider-Mans and the Dune’s of this world.