‘The Love Hypothesis’ is too focused on chemistry and not enough on character development

By Danielle Cherry 

Based on Ali Hazelwood’s wildly popular book “The Love Hypothesis,” the Prime video screen adaptation attempts to bring justice to the story. While staying true to the relationship development, the screen adaptation takes a more relationally focused narrative over the scientific avenue of the book. 

Olive Smith is a third year PHD student. She’s burnt out, in desperate need of a job and has no life outside of the mice in her laboratory. Having lost her parents at a young age, Olive is left with no one to take care of her—until another classmate, Anh, comes along adopting Olive into her life and her family. 

For Olive, Anh means everything, and when they both discover they like the same boy Olive sees only one way to convince Anh to date him: Olive has to convince Anh she is dating someone else. 

In a truly unthought move, Olive kisses the first guy she sees—who just happens to be Adam, a Doctorate researcher at the university and a professor with the reputation of failing every student who enters into his research program. 

After the unexpected encounter with Olive, both of them see their situation as an opportunity. Olive needs a fake boyfriend to help Anh, and Adam needs stability to convince the university to continue funding his research program. The pair enter into an agreement to fake-date to help each other out. 

While the two are obviously not in a relationship, everyone around them, while disbelieving at first, comes to fall for their ruse. There is much emphasis put on how awkward the pair are around each other, with their personalities clashing so much it causes second-hand embarrassment for the viewer. 

Lili Reinhart as Olive and Tom Bateman as Adam really have a good chemistry together. It is clear from the start that the actors have good banter, as they easily play off of the awkward moments the characters have with each other.  

As much as the movie tries to convince viewers otherwise, everyone in Olive’s life is toxic except Adam. Being a woman in science, Olive has faced many hardships trying to be respected in her field. While a complete jerk to everyone else, Adam truly respects Olive and her scientific work coming into contrast with the way he approaches everyone else. 

This movie does a really good job of utilizing Adam’s blunt nature and creating humorous situations out of it. So many of his lines are funny because of the delivery. There is no emotion, just matter-of-fact statements, and for a romance movie the contrast could not be more ironic. 

As much as I love representation in a scientific field, it really felt like Olive’s only purpose in the movie is to be a female in a mostly male dominated field. Other than looking at rats, there is little effort put into showing the hardships she endured to get to where she is. 

The story is left with little meaning other than the redemption that takes place for Adam the longer he stays with Olive. Really the only changes that happen are to Adam, who isn’t supposed to be the main character. 

Olive continues to be naive and blindly trusting, even when she is clearly being used. She doesn’t change her behavior, rather she changes the people around her. And that really leaves Olive as a protagonist who doesn’t progress the story very much. 

Yes she finds love, she gets a scholarship grant and eventually she graduates. But there is no change in her character. The original book was written by an author who was passionate to show women representation in a scientific field. I hate to say it, but it really feels like the movie turns that representation into stereotyping. 

Olive could have been a strong female protagonist, who while finding a man, still grew in her own way. Instead Adam takes the forefront of the story, with his development being far more interesting than Olive’s one speech she gives about science. 

Being rated R, I would be cautious about the content of this movie, with the odd age gap being a concern for some people. While Adam is not Olive’s professor it’s still a strange dynamic in an academic setting. A lot of the marketing makes it seem like it is PG, but it has mature themes throughout. 

So was this really a love hypothesis or more of a success hypothesis? If I was the one doing the study, I would have to say that this movie’s success didn’t support the researchers initial proposal.

“The Love Hypothesis” is currently streaming on Prime Video 

Danielle Cherry is a junior communication major and writer for Cedars Sports and Assistant Editor and writer for A&E. She is a Missionary Kid from Germany and thinks fake dating is both widely entertaining and incredibly stupid as a plot line. 

Images courtesy of AmazonMGM Studios