The Love Hypothesis

Rom-coms are a lot like AC/DC albums. AC/DC have seventeen albums over their fifty year career, and other than the necessary change in vocalist when Bon Scott passed away, you wouldn't know it listening to them. Every album has a song or two about how much they like rock and roll, a song or two about how much they like to perform rock and roll or how thoroughly they rock, and several songs about the love of women. AC/DC are not prone to musical exploration. They are dependable, a meat-and-potatoes, blues-based hard rock band. Some might call their seventeen albums repetitive; I'd argue they are consistent. But that doesn't mean every album is good. Sometimes, the same ingredients that come together to make a legendary album like Highway To Hell come together to make a forgettable piece of pap like Flick Of The Switch. How is this possible? I genuinely do not know, but it's the truth. Rom-coms are much the same way. There's only a few basic rom-com plots -- return home to find a missed connection is single, rivals turned lovers, friends turned lovers, and the fake-dating-becomes-real scam. Their plot beats are as predictable as a metronome; first act is the getting to know you phase, second act is whirlwind love, third act kicks off with an argument and perhaps an interloper and resolves with a romantic reunion. They're as complex and nuanced as boxed brownie recipes. But boxed brownies can be a damned delight, and a rom-com can too, provided their ingredients come together just right. Their success or failure to someone who isn't normally a fan largely, almost wholly, depends on the writing and the charisma of the leads. To my utter surprise, those elements in The Love Hypothesis work. In case you're wondering, it's one of those fake-dating-becomes-real stories, but there's a nice twist; Olive (the lead, played with endearing sweetness by Lili Reinhart) fake-dates someone to take herself off the market so her best friend can go after the guy they both like, because sisterhood. And wouldn't you know it, Olive and Adam end up falling in love. Cue the misunderstanding and interference from a jerk, temporary parting, best friend clears the air, reunion, happily ever after. I'm not gonna bore you with details because The Love Hypothesis is exactly the picture you think it is at a story level. It is wed to the formula almost to a fault. The moment the interfering party made themselves known, I turned to my wife and pointed it out. I say this not to toot my own horn, but to illustrate that The Love Hypothesis is not a rom-com to watch for variations on the formula; it's about does it do the formula well, and Reinhart and Tom Bateman acquit themselves. They have good chemistry together, and their characters are written just well enough that I liked seeing them crack each other's shells and be the partner neither knew they were looking for. It's not among the genre's best, though, and that's largely the fault of the movie being too wedded to the formula, and some rather clunky dialogue in some moments. The sex scene, which is already exceptionally steamy for a rom-com, could've been so much less corny were it not for the two talking through it with the weirdest dialogue, things that no two people having sex for the first time would say. And the backstory for Adam on why he's such a callous bastard doesn't track; he bemoans a former professor for his astonishing cruelty, so instead of becoming kind, he becomes a hardened, emotionless jackass. Huh? But rom-coms aren't the genre you pull at story threads. The stories are coat hangers, and the romantic build is the coat, and that is carried satisfactorily. It doesn't belong with the genre's best, but the charisma and chemistry of the leads and some genuinely funny moments carry this to watchable.