MOVIE REVIEW: The Love Hypothesis

Images courtesy of Amazon-MGM Studios

THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS— 3 STARS

Thanks to its setting and choice of diction to match its chosen environment, The Love Hypothesis has a habit of framing its humor and making its points with borrowed science jargon. The two central burdened faux lovers at the core of author Ali Hazelwood’s bestselling novel and this film’s source material speak of proposals, variables, data, samples, and parameters, both verbally to each other and internally with their supposedly calculated internal monologue. To get a joke or two, have your dictionary app or website of choice ready for this romantic comedy.

LESSON #1: IS SCIENCE SEXY?— With this selective vocabulary percolating all over the sophomore feature screenplay by Sarah Rothschild (Netflix’s The Sleepover), The Love Hypothesis is banking first on audiences being impressed by assumed smarts and cleverness. They’re going to sit there watching the dialogue and ask, “Is vocabulary sexy?” They’ll next see all the lab coats and PPE and wonder, “By golly, wait. Is science sexy too? Am I hot for the professor?” Cue a George Takei “Oh my!”

That’s the tricky place of The Love Hypothesis. Comfortable folks and rom-com purists who eagerly digest grains of salt and appreciate the natural preposterousness of the genre will lap this presumed level of intelligence—not all that far, when you think about it, from the pretend paleontologists of Bringing Up Baby—because it intrigues them. Others, especially those who actually carry logic thicker than the paper the fake Ph.D. degrees are printed on in this movie, will likely roll their eyes. 

Olive Smith, played by 7-time Teen Choice Award winner and former Riverdale TV star Lili Reinhart, is a biology grad student at Stanford University living with a cluster of friends and fellow program candidates. Focused on better treatment and potential cures for pancreatic cancer, the formerly orphaned Olive is brilliant in her field but lacks the extroverted confidence to prove herself. Her besties are Anh Pham (Rachel Marsh of The Morning Show and Adults) and Malcolm (Companion’s Jaboukie Young-White), two plucky extroverts who stand as Olive’s complete opposites. When Anh and Olive both develop feelings for the same classmate, Jeremy (Nicholas Duvernay of Reminders of Him), the meek Olive sees Anh as a better fit and buries her feelings. 

However, Anh will only pursue Jeremy if Olive has her own relationship in progress. Olive lies that she does, only to nearly get caught working late at the lab instead of being on a date. In doubled Meet Cute fashion, calling back to the opening bathroom scene of The Love Hypothesis, enter Dr. Adam Carlsen, dressed constantly in slick black and played by the British dish Tom Bateman (Hedda and Death on the Nile). Olive surprise-kisses him without consent to create a romantic appearance for Anh. Dr. Carlsen, dubbed “Dr. Evil” for his intensely negative demeanor, is the bane of every grad student’s existence. When Olive seeks him out later to apologize, Adam hatches an opportunity where they can help each other by continuing the deception she started. He, too, needs to look more humane for an upcoming grant renewal, and sees having a relationship as the ideal thing to soften his terrible reputation.

LESSON #2: STARTING ROMANCE FROM A COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE PLACE— As aforementioned, romantic comedy lovers are going to be perfectly fine with this zany scheme in The Love Hypothesis and see the future real sparks outshining the fake ones a mile away. Everyone else will be screaming about the colossal mistake and emotional suicide of a borderline monstrous professor dating a much younger grad student, and vice versa. No thick gobbledygook about “explanations based on limited evidence” will glaze over the errors. There’s even an avenue of this film where, in different hands and purposes from its masked origins as Star Wars fan fiction, Rachel Marsh’s character—the proxy of Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico—might be the more interesting character to follow, rather than Lili Reinhart’s neurotic lead. 

LESSON #3: MAKING EACH OTHER BETTER— With sweet sincerity, the ruse works. Career advancement prospects improve and, along the way, Olive and Adam make each other better as they get to know one another beyond the university. They trade imparting the prescribed confidence and passion they are missing from their mutual lives. Like any true romantic comedy with a foundation of denying feelings, fake it long enough with “will they/won’t they,” and you might even fall in love. It’s only a matter of time before someone in The Love Hypothesis caves, either to the overarching lie, their swelling feelings, or both. That also means the rom-com gods will not allow this movie to have a clean third act without separation, misunderstandings, vital conflicts, and a round of apologies. 

Still, there’s something about The Love Hypothesis that defies good judgment, and it rests with the stellar performance from Tom Bateman. Pacing his formal line delivery finery against a melting disposition brings out the best in the theatrically-trained 37-year-old. His haughty character is so unlikable, at first, that kicking back to see the robotic a-hole cringe, often in public, while being put through his lovey-dovey paces ends up being a hoot to watch. With decent chemistry and plenty of her own zingers, Lili Reinhart sets most of the scenes up, but the endearing transformation belongs to Bateman, in almost an academic Beauty and the Beast-tinged arc. No one is going to call Set It Up director Claire Scanlon’s fourth feature film high art or the next great screwball comedy, but it finds its stride the longer the fake dating carries on and creates our wishes it sticks around for good.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED #1432)