Spoiler warning: I’m talking about pretty much everything here, so if you haven’t read or watched Regretting You yet, come back later.

I watched Regretting You before I read the book, and I really thought by the time I finished reading I would have some kind of “the book was better” opinion.

I don’t.

This is one of those very rare cases where I genuinely love the book and the movie for basically the exact same reasons.

The Movie Really Did Stay That Faithful

The movie stayed so incredibly faithful to the book that there were times while I was reading where I was like, wait, they really did use this. And this. And that too.

Not just the big stuff either. Conversations, reactions, little moments between characters, the way certain scenes played out — so much of it was almost exactly what we saw in the movie.

Obviously there are some little differences because a movie has to condense things, but not enough to make me feel like I was reading some completely different version of the story.

And that made me really happy.

I hate when a movie adaptation takes a book that already works and decides it suddenly needs to “fix” everything.

Regretting You really didn’t do that.

It trusted the story.

Whoever Cast This Movie Understood The Assignment

And whoever cast this movie deserves a lot of credit too because after reading the book, every single one of them feels even more right.

Allison Williams completely became Morgan for me.

Which is saying something because after Get Out, I really did think I was never going to be able to look at that woman normally again.

She played Rose way too well.

But watching Regretting You, I forgot all about that. She was just Morgan.

She got that whole part of Morgan where she’s trying to be a mom, trying to hold everything together, grieving, pissed off, confused, hurt and also slowly realizing that maybe she has spent way too much of her life worrying about everybody except herself.

Then there’s Dave Franco as Jonah.

Loved him.

Loved him in the movie, loved Jonah in the book, and after reading it I think Dave was even more perfect than I originally realized.

He has to play somebody who has all of this history with Morgan without making it feel weird or forced, especially with everything that happens with Chris and Jenny.

And somehow it works.

You believe that there was always something there. You believe that these two people cared about each other long before either one of them was ever going to do anything about it.

McKenna Grace and Mason Thames Were Perfect

And then McKenna Grace and Mason Thames.

Perfect.

McKenna was Clara.

The book obviously gets to let us inside Clara’s head more, but McKenna did such a good job with the movie that I never felt like I was missing who Clara was.

You could see what she was feeling.

And Mason was just Miller.

Sweet, awkward, funny, annoying sometimes, but in the right way.

He felt exactly like the boy I was reading about.

And yes, knowing that McKenna and Mason ended up together in real life makes their scenes even cuter now.

They have both talked about how quickly they clicked and how close they became, and Mason talked about basically never connecting with someone that quickly before. They also talked about some of the kisses in the movie being improvised, which makes the whole thing even sweeter when you go back and watch them together. (Teen Vogue⁠)

Obviously we don’t know exactly when friendship turned into something more, but knowing there was a real connection there makes Clara and Miller hit a little differently.

It kind of feels like we were watching two people who really liked each other while they were pretending to be two people who really liked each other.

And I love that.

Morgan, We Need to Talk About Those Letters

Now.

Morgan.

We need to talk.

Those letters.

Absolutely not.

There is no version of me in any universe where I find out my husband and my sister were having an affair, discover a whole stack of letters between them, and then decide, “You know what? I don’t need to read these.”

YES I DO.

I would have read every single one.

Every. Single. Letter.

Probably in order.

I would want dates. I would want timelines. I would want to know who said what.

I would want to know when this started.

I would want to know how long I had been walking around completely clueless while these two were apparently writing each other damn novels behind my back.

Morgan is better than me.

Because I am reading those letters.

The movie changes that scene a little, but not the actual point of it. She still makes the decision not to know everything.

And I understand what the story is trying to say there.

Sometimes knowing every detail doesn’t actually help you heal.

Fine.

Beautiful.

Very mature.

Still reading them.

For Once, I Don’t Have to Choose

The thing that surprised me most after finishing the book is that I really didn’t come away with a list of complaints about the movie.

There are little differences, sure.

There always are.

But nothing made me go, “Why the hell would they change that?”

Nothing made me feel like they had misunderstood the characters. Nothing made me wish I had just stuck with the book instead.

It actually made me appreciate the movie more because I could see just how much they respected the source material.

It almost feels like everybody involved read the book a few times before they ever showed up on set.

Because these people knew these characters.

That’s what it felt like.

And that is probably why this ended up being such a rare one for me.

I don’t love the book despite the movie.

I don’t love the movie despite the book.

I love them both for the same damn reason.

They told the same story, they gave me the same characters, and they both made me care about all of them.

So nope.

I’m not picking one.

For once, the book and the movie can both stay.

Featured image: Regretting You film still. © Constantin Film Distribution GmbH, via Praesens-Film press materials.