A well-crafted, sad-happy adaptation

MOVIE REVIEW: REMINDERS OF HIM

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The film stays true to Colleen Hoover's novel that is a mix of grief and romance

The hunky, sweet hero in the new romantic drama Reminders of Him at one point turns to the movie's heroine and tells her: "I'm starting to wonder if you're the saddest girl I've never met." It's hard to argue.

First, she's a penniless former prison inmate who has returned to her small town of Laramie, Wisconsin, where she's hooking up with her former boyfriend's best friend. Second, that boyfriend is dead and she's been blamed, hence the prison sentence. Plus, she's hoping to connect with her estranged daughter, born of tragedy.

There's a lot going on with Kenna Rowan, who can't afford a phone or a car and so walks everywhere around the town, lives in a rundown motel and can't initially get a job because she's a felon. She hates listening to the radio because all the songs are sad. Pot calling the kettle, right?