‘Reminders of Him’ Is a Love Story About Forgiveness After Prison

I don’t often think of the romance genre as a cinematic vehicle for social commentary. When your film is exploring the complications of modern love in the straitjacket of a “will they/won’t they” story, it can be hard to comment on larger themes. While there are, of course, exceptions to my bias, I often feel that romance films are too preoccupied with the inner lives of their characters to turn their lens outward to societal ailments. While director Vanessa Caswill didn’t entirely abandon the cheesy or saccharine for her latest film, Reminders of Him challenged my pre-conceived romance biases. Based on the Colleen Hoover novel of the same name, Reminders of Him is a tender love story that offers pointed commentary about forgiveness and redemption, as it delivers a humanizing portrait of those who have been victims of the criminal legal system.

READ: Is There Room for Forgiveness in Our Legal System?

Romances tap into the universal longing to be desired, seen, and known. But Reminders of Him raises those emotional stakes by centering Kenna (Maika Monroe), a woman recently released from prison who has been told by both the state and her community that she’s not worthy of redemption or love.

Upon her release, Kenna goes back to her unnamed hometown, where she attempts to reconnect with her daughter, Diem (Zoe Kosovic). While home, Kenna struggles to find a job given her incarceration. Details surrounding her arrest come to light: She was driving with Diem’s father Scotty (Rudy Pankow) while under the influence when she crashed the car, killing Scotty. While brainstorming job prospects at a bar, Kenna meets Ledger (Tyriq Withers), the bar owner and Scotty’s best friend. While the attraction is mutual, their meeting shakes Kenna, who wrestles with whether she’s worthy of a fresh start.

The premise alone shines a light on the obstacles formerly incarcerated folks face upon reentry, both socially and professionally. Monroe and Withers, the romantic leads, welcomed the opportunity to imbue social consciousness into a large-scale romance vehicle. Monroe credited Hoover for the thematic richness of the source material. “I think that’s why so many people love her books. She’s capable of writing and using romance and love stories in a way that can connect with everyone,” Monroe told Sojourners. Withers concurred, saying, “I think we all love and want to be loved, and Colleen is smart for taking that desire and using that as the bedrock to tell a story to educate about prison reform or motherhood.”  

Monroe’s dynamic performance showcases the impact that incarceration can have on a person.  “My task was to show that when you see this younger version of her, she’s very carefree and loving, but she’s not the same after the accident,” Monroe explained. “Trauma changes you to your core. A huge part of the story is Kenna learning to forgive herself. You can’t hope to forgive others if you can’t forgive yourself.”

Caswill sees personal and interpersonal forgiveness as a throughline of her filmography, and welcomed the opportunity to  explore forgiveness more nakedly with Reminders of Him. In addition to wrestling with her relationship with Ledger, Kenna also seeks some form of reconciliation with Scotty’s parents, Grace (Lauren Graham), and Patrick (Bradley Whitford), who have custody of Diem. Understandably, Scotty’s parents mourn the loss of their son and want nothing to do with Kenna. This is a hurt that “I’m sorry” can’t just reverse.

Caswill wanted to showcase how forgiveness is not a singular moment but an ongoing series of processes, one where all parties can oscillate between rage and absolution. “What I find interesting about forgiveness is that it’s not just for the person who’s being forgiven; it’s for the forgiving person. And unless they can [forgive], they’re just dragging their past into their future at all times,” she shared, “There’s some great liberation in being able to say, ‘I let you go’ or, ‘I let this go.’ That doesn’t mean that responsibility should be relinquished and that actions don’t have consequences.”

Caswill wanted to showcase how forgiveness is not a singular moment but an ongoing series of processes, one where all parties can oscillate between rage and absolution.

It’s that mindset that prevents Reminders of Him from misunderstanding or oversimplifying the complex process of forgiveness; forgiveness doesn’t necessarily erase the wrongdoing or restore a relationship to what it was before.

Caswill was also mindful of ensuring everyone’s arcs within the story were properly honored, even though Kenna was the central protagonist. “In regards to Kenna’s mother-in-law, Grace, for her, forgiveness is a difficult act, not just because of what Kenna did, but blaming Kenna is an emotion that she can hold in front of her grief. And once she forgives her, actually all the grief tumbles out … Do we withhold forgiveness because we are afraid of addressing our own pain?” Caswill said.

Grace is challenging to enact on an interpersonal level, and perhaps even harder to institute on a societal level. Take, for instance, our treatment of formerly incarcerated people in the U.S. The Prison Policy Initiative reports that “the unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated people is nearly five times higher than the unemployment rate for the general United States population.” And the formerly incarcerated individuals who are able to find work, are mainly regulated to lower-paying industry sectors.

Through its empathetic lens, Reminders of Him brings the people behind these statistics into focus, insisting that grace belongs to them, too. 

Reminders of Him is now in theaters.