There is a long, storied history to melodrama that stretches back centuries – “Wuthering Heights,” Douglas Sirk movies, you name it. The definition of melodrama necessitates exaggeration and excitement, sweeping emotions and grand gestures. But I’ve always found that melodrama works best when those emotions are rooted in something a little more grounded. In Sirk’s masterpiece “All That Heaven Allows,” Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) always feels like a real person – her reality may be a heightened one, but it is reality nonetheless.
“Reminders of Him,” Vanessa Caswill’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel of the same name, falls neatly into the melodrama category. It’s not nearly as good as something like “All That Heaven Allows,” (truthfully, what is?) but it has a similarly grounded bent. Even if the face of a, frankly, pretty bonkers premise.
We meet Kenna (Maika Monroe), a young woman who just got out of prison – she served time after her fiance Scotty (Rudy Pankow) died in a car crash and she was behind the wheel. While she was in prison, Kenna had Scotty’s baby (inexplicably, this child is named Diem), who then went to live with Scotty’s parents (Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford). They hate Kenna, so much so that they refuse to let her see Diem.
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