'The Love Hypothesis' proves there's one good rom-com every year or two
Amazon
At last, a movie worthy of Lili Reinhart’s appeal.
Granted, “The Love Hypothesis” sounds highly mediocre: “A Stanford Ph.D candidate maybe falls in love for real with the professor with whom she’s in a fake relationship for semi-absurd reasons. Based on the hit novel!” But judge the taste, not the recipe. As Olive (Reinhart) plays girlfriend to Adam (Tom Bateman), aka Dr. Carlsen, aka Dr. Evil, a funny thing happens: cute as a compliment, representing not an absent of substance but the presence of warmth. This is the rare movie that shows young people trying and succeeding at being very smart while also being flawed (and sometimes very sweaty) and having fun as believable people and friends. Scripted by Sarah Rothschild from Ali Hazelwood’s book, “The Love Hypothesis” understands the role of love in friendship and friendship in relationships, which is easy to do badly and quite hard to do with true heart. You see these people getting to know each other better than they intended to, as well as what they like.
Unfortunately, director Claire Scanlon (the overrated “Set It Up”) can’t save the material from the very predictable, late-movie emergence of a creep, and the story seems unclear what to do with itself after that. But Bateman (“Hedda,” “Thirteen Lives”) has breakout potential and matches well with Reinhart, who deserves better than “Chemical Hearts” or “Look Both Ways” and finally gets it. The pair give Olive and Adam legit repartee and turn the enemies-to-lovers trope into something winning instead of stale.
This is hardly the first case of characters setting up something phony only to realize what they thought was disgust was actually attraction. But at a time when many people struggle to build intimacy with others, “The Love Hypothesis” sees how fake it ‘til you make it probably needs something real for the imitation to convince.
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