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So once I knew The Love Hypothesis was set to be one of the buzziest rom-com releases of the year, I tried to avoid learning too many specifics about its science-based story.
What I do know is that it stars Lili Reinhart, who’s one of the most exciting young actors working today.
So join me as I make my way through my initial viewing, sharing my detailed reactions and a final assessment.
She drinks sweet drinks with extra whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles!
Photos: Prime Video
Welcome to Girl Culture, the newsletter where Caroline Siede examines pop culture, feminism, and more. To get the full experience, including my rom-com column and my Disney princess series, you can become a paid subscriber.
My job involves a fine line between keeping an ear to the ground about what big movies are coming up and trying not to learn too much about them in advance so I can watch with fresh eyes. So once I knew The Love Hypothesis was set to be one of the buzziest rom-com releases of the year, I tried to avoid learning too many specifics about its science-based story. What I do know is that it stars Lili Reinhart, who’s one of the most exciting young actors working today. (If you haven’t seen her in Hal & Harper seek it out!) And it’s based on a best-selling book by Ali Hazelwood, which started—of all things—as Star Wars fan fiction between Rey and Kylo Ren. Now that’s a pitch!
Add in the fact that Daisy Ridley’s real-life husband Tom Bateman is playing the male lead and Set It Up’s Claire Scanlon is directing, and there’s the real potential for this to be either a genuinely great movie or at least a fascinating failed experiment. So join me as I make my way through my initial viewing, sharing my detailed reactions and a final assessment. Spoilers to follow!
As someone with terrible eyesight who stretches out my contact use, I feel very seen (or not so seen, I guess) by this opening prologue.
This mousy brown wig is an attempt to make budding scientist Olive Smith look shy and nerdy, but it’s not really working. Lili Reinhart still has the spirit of a beautiful blonde woman.
This is the most colorfully dressed group of college students I’ve ever seen. They look like they’re in a Gap ad from 2005.
I respect this movie using “my person” in its original Grey’s Anatomy sense (a female best friend who would be your emergency contact for an abortion) and not in the romantic way it’s been co-opted.
Is Olive’s roommate Malcolm the Finn of this movie? Or is it her crush Jeremy? Or maybe her best friend Anh? There are truly so many ways to read the Rey/Finn relationship.
Are these characters undergrads or grad students? Neither answer tracks for me.
Okay, Anh turning down Jeremy’s date because she knows Olive has a crush on him is very sweet! She is a good friend! Between this and Adults, Rachel Marsh is proving to be quite the scene-stealer.
“I’m seeing someone. / “You mean like a therapist?” I once had the reverse version of this exchange when someone told me they started seeing someone and I excitedly asked about their relationship only to discover they meant they found a new a therapist. It’s been over a decade and it still haunts me…
Believe it or not, I actually didn’t even know this was going to be a “fake dating” story! I tend to like my rom-coms a little less contrived than that, although I did enjoy the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy. Still, Olive impulsively kissing a random man doesn’t exactly fit with her painfully shy personality.
Wait, is Dr. Adam Carlsen a professor at this school? How old is anyone in this story?
The jaunty score is giving Hallmark movie in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Okay, Olive is talking about a dissertation so I guess she’s a PhD student, but I feel like her big lecture hall classes are very undergrad-coded.
I’m gonna be honest, I’m not getting Kylo Ren so much as a ripped Sheldon Cooper.
“Why don’t you just get a real girlfriend?” / “I suppose the same reason you don’t get a real boyfriend.” Okay, okay, I’m starting to see the vision for their comedic chemistry.
We get ethical clarity that doctoral students and post-docs can date as long as they’re in completely different fields of study. I wasn’t actually that concerned about the ethics, although I am slightly confused how this dynamic grafts onto Rey and Kylo, who felt like generational peers at the mercy of a bigger battle being waged by the older characters around them. Only now the battle is fake dating?
Sorry, but I just don’t believe a man this hot would be ostracized within the science community because he’s kind of blunt. Wouldn’t people in the sciences be used to bluntness? What’s he doing that’s getting him labeled Dr. Evil?
He drinks black coffee! She drinks sweet drinks with extra whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles! How will they ever make it work?!?
