Maika Monroe's Reminders of Him
Maika Monroe leads ‘Reminders of Him’, Opening March 13, the Movie That Will Crack Your Soul
Maika Monroe stars in the Colleen Hoover film adaptation of Reminders of Him, in theaters March 13. Here’s why this one hits different.
She walks back into a town that doesn’t want her. No fanfare, no forgiveness waiting at the door. Just seven years of regret and a daughter who doesn’t know her name.
That’s where Reminders of Him begins, and if you think you know where it’s going, you don’t.
Based on the Colleen Hoover novel that spent what felt like a geological era on the New York Times bestseller list, this feature film adaptation stars Maika Monroe as Kenna, a woman trying to earn back the right to exist in her own story. It opens in theaters March 13, 2026 and it arrives with the weight of a book that millions of readers already carry like a wound.
Why Colleen Hoover’s Most Personal Story Demanded the Big Screen
Colleen Hoover didn’t write Reminders of Him as a love story. She wrote it as a reckoning. The novel sits at the intersection of grief, guilt, and the stubborn, irrational persistence of hope, and that’s a combination that plays differently when you can see it on someone’s face.
Maika Monroe is doing some of the most interesting work in Hollywood right now. After Longlegs showed she could hold the center of a deeply unsettling film without flinching, watching her take on Kenna feels like a logical, emotionally dangerous next step. Kenna isn’t a villain. She isn’t a victim either. She made a catastrophic mistake and she has to live inside that every day. Monroe carries that weight without turning it into performance. You feel it land.
The Colleen Hoover film adaptation question has always been: how do you honor the interiority of her writing on screen? Hoover’s books live inside the reader’s head. The adaptation of It Ends with Us proved the material could survive the translation. Reminders of Him goes further into moral complexity, and that’s where it gets genuinely interesting for anyone who studies storytelling for a living.
Tyriq Withers and the Character Ledger Deserved
Tyriq Withers plays Ledger, a former NFL player who now owns a bar in the kind of Wyoming town where everyone knows everything and forgiveness is a luxury most people can’t afford. Which, honestly, sounds like every small town ever put on film, but Reminders of Him earns the setting rather than just borrowing the atmosphere.
What makes Ledger’s role structurally fascinating is that he’s caught between two loyalties that shouldn’t be able to coexist. He’s connected to Diem’s family. He falls for the woman that family has declared an enemy. His secret romance with Kenna isn’t just emotionally dangerous, it’s a structural time bomb running through the second act. Withers, known for HIM and I Know What You Did Last Summer, brings a grounded physicality to the role that keeps Ledger from becoming a simple redemption device for Kenna’s arc.
This is a film built around two people making choices that complicate their lives in ways that feel earned, not manufactured. That’s rarer than it should be.
Motherhood, Forgiveness, and What Second Chances Actually Cost
The emotional core of Reminders of Him is a question films rarely ask with this much honesty: can you deserve forgiveness before you’ve received it?
Kenna’s daughter Diem has never known her. The grandparents holding custody have every reason to keep it that way. And Kenna can’t simply argue her way into being a mother. She has to become one in the dark, without credit, without acknowledgment, without certainty that any of it will matter.
Most romantic drama protagonists would have a heartfelt speech moment around the midpoint that resolves at least half the tension. Reminders of Him is not particularly interested in letting anyone off the hook that easily.
The film is rooted in a question that the best literary fiction always circles back to: what does love actually require of a person? Not sentiment. Not good intentions. But the willingness to absorb consequence, to keep showing up anyway. For a deeper look at how literary adaptations navigate moral complexity on screen, Screen Rant’s deep dive on CoHo adaptations tracks the full arc of Hoover’s journey from self-published author to cultural force.
Mini FAQ
What is Reminders of Him about? Reminders of Him follows Kenna, played by Maika Monroe, a woman released from prison after seven years who returns to her hometown hoping to reconnect with the young daughter she has never known. The film explores motherhood, forgiveness, and a secret romance that puts everything she’s rebuilt at risk.
Is Reminders of Him based on a book? Yes. The film is based on the novel by Colleen Hoover, a #1 New York Times bestselling author. The book is one of Hoover’s most emotionally complex works and has a devoted readership that will likely show up for the adaptation in significant numbers.
Who stars in Reminders of Him and when does it come out? Maika Monroe stars as Kenna, with Tyriq Withers as Ledger. The film opens in theaters on March 13, 2026. Monroe’s recent work in Longlegs and the remake of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle has made her one of the most compelling actors working in genre-adjacent dramatic film.
Love films that don’t offer easy exits
If you love films that don’t offer easy exits, mark March 13 on your calendar and show up for Reminders of Him. This is the kind of Colleen Hoover film adaptation that could genuinely surprise audiences who think they already know what they’re getting. Watch Maika Monroe work. Watch Tyriq Withers hold his ground in an impossible position. And pay attention to what the film asks of you quietly, in between the bigger moments. That’s where it lives.