When it comes to high-concept romantic comedy premises, The Love Hypothesis has a new one. It’s a rom-com based on a ruse, set in the high-stakes, competitive world of post-graduate academic science programs. This premise requires an alternate universe where scientists, while maintaining nerdy dispositions, are the best-looking people in the world. The film is ridiculous on various fronts, but has some charm.
Lili Reinhart stars as Olive, a socially awkward PhD candidate whose parents are deceased, and who’s dedicated her research to finding a cure for pancreatic cancer. Early in her studies, she joins a group of friends in her program (Rachel Marsh, Nicholas Duvernay, and Jaboukie Young-White). She develops early feelings for Jeremy (Duvernay) but backs off when her best friend (Marsh) starts dating him.
Through a series of laughable plot machinations, she and Adam (Tom Bateman), the severe and intimidating postdoctoral professor, pretend to date. Her end of the bargain is to prove to her friend that she doesn’t pine for her boyfriend, while Adam thinks the university will renew his grant if he shows signs of putting down roots by having a girlfriend. The two seem mismatched, in part because everything about the way Bateman plays him suggests Adam is on the autism spectrum, even though this is never stated.
This is a thin reed on which to place a romcom premise, and while Reinhart is fine in the part, the actress playing her best friend, Rachel Marsh, steals every scene she’s in, and the movie might’ve been better if she’d been the star. Marsh was a guest star this season on the Hulu show Adults, which isn’t good, though she was responsible for the season’s best episode, where she inexplicably decided to become a pop star. And while Jaboukie Young-White is a hilarious performer, the movie doesn’t give him anything to do. References to the difficulties women face in STEM fields come up, but the film’s treatment of the topic is half-hearted.
The Love Hypothesis is based on a popular novel, and its origins are even more batshit: It started off as Star Wars romantic fan fiction, about the Force Awakens characters Kylo and Rey, until the setting was changed to academia in the published version, along with, presumably, the characters’ abilities to use the Force. This means that the original Adam wasn’t just a demanding boss, but was an adherent to the Dark Side. “Adam” is named after Adam Driver, and Bateman is married in real life to Daisy Ridley, who played Rey.
The preview audience I saw it with ate everything up. So naturally, the film went straight to Prime Video this week without a theatrical release.