The Love Hypothesis

Based on Ali Hazelwood’s bestselling novel, the story centres on Olive Smith (Lili Reinhart), a PhD candidate who impulsively kisses intimidating professor Dr Adam Carlsen (Tom Bateman) to convince her best friend Anh (Rachel Marsh) that she has moved on from a previous romantic interest. One awkward kiss develops into a fake relationship with rules, boundaries and supposedly mutually beneficial outcomes. Unfortunately for these scientists, relationships rarely behave according to controlled conditions.

A familiar romantic formula

There is little here that will surprise anyone who has spent much time with romantic comedies. You know where the relationship is going. You know complications will arise. You know something will eventually threaten to keep Olive and Adam apart. The enjoyment comes from watching how the film gets there. Thankfully, Reinhart and Bateman make the whole experiment work.

There is believable chemistry between them, which is essential for a story like this. The fake relationship provides an interesting way to bring together two unlikely people, while their contrasting personalities offer enough humour, awkwardness and romance to keep things moving.

Director Claire Scanlon surrounds them with a modern, multicultural circle of friends who give the film the feel of contemporary young-adult life. The supporting cast are all in on the fun, but Rachel Marsh deserves particular mention as Anh. Her heartfelt friendship with Olive provides another layer to the story and helps lift the film slightly above the stock-standard streaming romantic comedy. Because ultimately, that is what this is.

Stock-standard. Yet sometimes there is nothing wrong with ordering something familiar from the menu.

Reinhart and Bateman provide the chemistry

Romantic comedies live or die on whether audiences actually want the central couple to be together. Reinhart and Bateman manage to sell the relationship even when the screenplay moves through familiar territory. Reinhart gives Olive an appealing combination of intelligence, insecurity and awkwardness, while Bateman provides the required brooding academic presence before gradually revealing another side of Adam.

There is also a dramatic turn later in the story that threatens to derail more than their romance. It gives the final portion some needed weight and provides an obstacle considerably more serious than the standard romantic misunderstanding. Still, nobody should come to The Love Hypothesis expecting radical discoveries in the field of romantic cinema.

With a dash of romance and a sprinkle of comedy, this provides the proper chemical compound for romantics looking for some silliness during their late-night viewing.

What should parents know?

Despite the playful romantic-comedy packaging, The Love Hypothesis is aimed firmly at an adult audience. This isn’t merely because its characters are adults. The film contains coarse language and sexual content, and once Olive and Adam’s relationship moves beyond the hypothetical, the filmmakers don’t hold back on the mature side of their romance.

This was never going to be ideal family viewing, but parents of teenagers attracted by the bestselling novel or its young-adult romantic appeal should be aware that this is an adult romantic comedy.

The bottom line

The Love Hypothesis is hardly a breakthrough discovery in romantic comedy.

Its ingredients will be immediately recognisable: fake dating, opposites attracting, misunderstandings, supportive friends and the inevitable question of whether pretending to be in love might accidentally result in the real thing. Yet formulas become formulas for a reason.

Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman have enough believable chemistry to keep us invested, while Rachel Marsh and the supporting cast add the friendship and humour needed to stop the film from becoming merely another streaming romance. It won’t rewrite the romantic-comedy textbook, but the chemistry is strong enough for the experiment to succeed.

REEL DIALOGUE: Can you manufacture love in a chemistry lab?

Olive and Adam are scientists. They understand experiments, hypotheses and measurable outcomes. Even their fake relationship resembles an experiment: establish the conditions, agree on the rules and hopefully achieve the desired result. If only love were that simple.

Science can tell us plenty about attraction and human behaviour, but why do we have such a profound desire not merely for romance, but to know another person and to be known by them? Interestingly, the Bible begins with relationship.

After creating the first man, God says: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” — Genesis 2:18

Genesis then describes the unique relationship between a man and woman in marriage:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” — Genesis 2:24

Biblically, romantic love isn’t merely about finding someone who produces the right emotional or physical reaction. Marriage involves commitment, intimacy, faithfulness and two lives being joined together. This doesn’t mean everyone must marry—the Bible clearly honours singleness too—but it does tell us something about why relationships matter. We were created as relational beings, designed to know and be known, to love and be loved.

That is where The Love Hypothesis becomes more interesting than its fake-dating premise. Olive and Adam can manufacture the circumstances that make them look like a couple. They can establish rules and perform affection for everyone around them. What they cannot manufacture is genuine love.

Perhaps love isn’t something we can produce in a laboratory. Maybe it is something we were designed to experience.

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