The Love Hypothesis on Prime Video review: mostly mediocre despite the hot hotel room scene — but the new movie proves that the best romance of all can be found in our friendships
by https://www.techradar.com/author/jasmine-valentine · TechRadarTechRadar Verdict
We get it... sometimes, it's worth putting your neck on the line if a handsome, successful man actually does like you. But The Love Hypothesis' most successful romance isn't between Olive and Adam, but Olive and Anh.
Pros
- +It's fine (complimentary)
- +Ticks all the rom-com boxes you'd want it to
- +My gut tells me that fans of the original book will be happy with it
- +Yes, the hotel room scene is excellent
- +Actually quite a sincere take on women in STEM
- +Lili Reinhart doing what she does best
Cons
- -It's fine (derogatory)
- -In the most obvious of ways, everything is painfully basic
- -Underwhelming soundtrack for a Prime Video project
- -Tom Bateman's 'Dr. Evil' Adam takes a while to become tolerable
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While everyone else at school was dreaming about their future spouse and white wedding, I was dreaming about my future friends. I didn't have the platonic relationships I was told I would have by popular 2000s kids TV shows like The Sleepover Club, with my friends and I braiding each other's hair and spilling all of their secrets.
Watching The Love Hypothesis on Prime Video brought the romance of that childhood dream flooding back. In fact, I think the new movie has got the love story at its core all wrong — this isn't a passionate affair between PHD student Olive (Lili Reinhart) and "evil" Doctor Adam (Tom Bateman), but an example of enduring connection between friends Olive and Anh (Rachel Marsh).
Of course, I get why the former route has been taken. Not only is the film an adaptation of the popular Ali Hazelwood novel of the same name, but Amazon is on a roll with its abundance of young-adult romantic dramas. You can't tune into a streamer that's developed bangers like Off Campus, Stirling Point and Every Year After and expect it to take a different tack here.
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Is this taking the safe option? Probably. Does The Love Hypothesis tick the rom-com boxes it needs to? Undoubtedly. But while I don't think fans of the book will be disappointed, I can't help feeling that The Love Hypothesis has missed fully exploring its most enriching love story.
The Love Hypothesis is far from the greatest love story ever told — but it's fun
The Love Hypothesis - Official Trailer | Prime Video - YouTube
In a nutshell, Olive is a third-year biology PhD candidate at Stanford researching early pancreatic cancer detection. In order to convince her best friend Anh that she has completely moved on from a crush, Olive impulsively grabs and kisses Adam in the lab hallway. The two make a mutually beneficial agreement to fake date each other... though that fakeness doesn't last for long.
You can see, and correctly guess, all of the story beats just from me writing that short synopsis. There are no surprises, and things will end exactly where you expect them to. For some people, this is what they'll want — a reliable, sexy and giving rom-com in these desolate times? I get the appeal. Just don't expect anything that will blow your wind.
Even though Adam is barely tolerable for the majority if The Love Hypothesis, the ensemble cast is clearly at home in the genre. We want to be Olive as she wrestles between her head and heart, attending cool house parties and industry mixers. We want to shout at the characters who do her wrong, and we truly feel like her ride or die through the process.
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