Fans and critics give their verdict on new book-to-film rom com 'The Love Hypothesis'

There is a science to love... at least there is in this latest rom com.

The highly anticipated romantic comedy The Love Hypothesis, based on the New York Times best-selling novel by Ali Hazelwood.

The story follows Olive, a studious Ph.D. candidate (Lili Reinhart) who realizes her best friend Ahn (Rachel Marsh) has fallen for her crush Jeremy (Nicholas Duvernay), and so to prove she's over it, Olive then impulsively kisses intimidating professor Adam Carlsen (Tom Bateman).

Prime Video

"What begins as a desperate act of friendship spirals into a fake relationship with rules, boundaries, and a mutually beneficial agreement. When their arrangement begins to blur the lines between performance and reality, Olive is forced to test her most daunting hypothesis yet: that love might actually be worth the risk," the plot synopsis reads.

The film is directed by Claire Scanlon, written by Sarah Rothschild, produced by Elizabeth Cantillon and stars Lili Reinhart, Tom Bateman, Rachel Marsh, Nicholas Duvernay, Jaboukie Young-White, and Arty Froushan.

Fun fact: The Love Hypothesis book first started out as Reylo fanfiction (the Star Wars characters ship between Rey and Kylo Ren played by Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver in the fantasy franchise). Ridley's husband is Tom Bateman who plays the male lead in The Love Hypothesis film adaptation.

What are critics saying?

Prime Video

Following it's release, The Love Hypothesis has received a 77 per cent critics score and 81 per cent audience score on film and TV review aggregate website, Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, and has an average rating of 3.6 out of 5 on Letterboxd.

Girl Culture's Caroline Siede said: "To break this down scientifically, there are three types of successful rom-coms: Genuinely Good, Enjoyably Cheesy, and So-Bad-It’s-Good. [The Love Hypothesis] winds up settling comfortably into that middle space."

"Comes off as artlessly, almost lazily by the numbers, a faltering chain of tropes (enemies to lovers) and stock characters to a jaunty string score," wrote The Guardian's Adrian Horton in his two-star review.

"If you love love and you love hypotheses, you’ll hypothetically love 'The Love Hypothesis,'" The Wrap's William Bibbiani.

What are fans saying?

Since it's release, fans have been watching the film and sharing their initial thoughts and reactions on social media - and there were a lot of viewers satisfied with the book-to-film adaptation, praising Reinhart and Bateman's chemistry.

One person said, "Just finished watching The Love Hypothesis."

"The Love Hypothesis the movie that you are," a second person wrote.

A third person added, "Demisexual Olive Smith I love you so so much like it’s very obvious in the book but on screen it can be so hard to portray, I’m really glad they said the word and explanation out loud."

"Just finished watching The Love Hypothesis and i’m SO happy with how good of an adaptation it is but mostly I’m so f***ing delighted that is SUCH a good romcom. So many laugh out loud moments I was literally in tears but the romance OH THE ROMANCE IS DELICIOUS," a fourth person commented.

However, not everything from the book can be included in the film and viewers pointed out which parts of the book they missed in the adaptation, in particular the fact that in the books Adam was already in love with Olive before they started fake dating, and also the absence of Adam's best friend Dr. Holden Rodriguez from the film.

"The only thing I didn’t like about the love hypothesis movie was that they did not include Adam being in love with Olive since their meeting in his bathroom like that plot was so buzzy in the book," one person shared.

A second person reacted, "One thing I hated after watching The Love Hypothesis movie was that they never revealed that Adam was pining after Olive for 3 years before they started fake dating,"

"Ok The Love Hypothesis was cute, but where was Adam’s best friend," a third person asked.

In conclusion, "Happy “The Love Hypothesis” Day to those who celebrate!"

Where can I watch?

Prime Video

The Love Hypothesis was released on September 2 and is now available to watch exclusively on Prime Video.

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