REVIEW: ‘The Love Hypothesis’ Puts Respect First

Romantic comedies are both beloved and maligned. From the meet-cute to the miscommunications, the hijinks, and the inevitable fight that leads to realizing they loved each other all along, these elements are the genre’s hallmarks. Like them or leave them, it’s how each rom-com tackles the tropes that sets it apart. Prime Video’s The Love Hypothesis may be painting by numbers, but its approach to the genre is built so thoroughly on professional respect that it makes the film an instant classic. 

Based on the novel of the same name by Ali Hazelwood, The Love Hypothesis goes all in on one of my favorite rom-com tropes: fake relationships. Set against a Stanford backdrop, Olive (Lili Reinhart) is at the end of her PhD candidacy in cancer research. But she’s spent most of her time lovesick over a crush on a professor named Jeremy (Nicholas Duvernay) that she can’t act on.

But Jeremy is more focused on Olive’s best friend, Anh (Rachel Marsh), or at least it seems. In an attempt to push Jeremy and Anh together and prove that her crush is over and done with, Olive winds up fake-dating Dr. Adam Carlsen (Tom Bateman). But only after asking to kiss him to escape Anh and prove she’s on a date. 

Olive and Adam strike a mutually beneficial deal in the charming The Love Hypothesis. 

Nicknamed Dr. Evil by his research team, this is actually the second time that Olive and Adam meet, even if it takes a while for Olive to realize it. Adam is known for making his students cry, including Olive’s roommate Malcolm (Jaboukie Young-White), a member of Adam’s research team. She’s sweet and nervous; he’s self-assured and cold; it’s a match made in the rom-com pantheon.

When Adam calls Olive into his office and explains that he, too, could benefit from a fake relationship, the two decide to give it a go. Adam wants people to see him differently and prove that he is invested in the school and people around him to get more funding. Olive, meanwhile, wants to prove that she isn’t still hung up on a guy she believes likes her best friend.

Pushing the genre further, their fake romance gets complicated when Tom (Arty Froushan) enters the picture. Adam doesn’t like him, but he’s kind of friends with him, and Olive admires him, hoping to get on Tom’s Harvard research team.

This last bit grounds The Love Hypothesis. Olive isn’t someone obsessed with love. Having lost her mother to cancer, Olive’s goal in life is to find a cure. She’s dedicated to science, her research, and ultimately, success. And that’s something that she shares with her fake boyfriend. 

Respect drives the central relationship, and the movie is better for it.

While The Love Hypothesis deals in the same color-by-numbers narrative, it’s the professional push that makes the film stand out. Olive isn’t defined by her romance alone. Her friendship with Ahn and Malcolm is central to her growth, and her ambition makes her a woman who isn’t content to be just a girlfriend or a wife. She is going to be a Dr., not a Mrs. 

Because of this, Olive and Adam’s relationship is built on respect. They respect each other, not only as people, but as professionals. They push each other further, are better for it, and never lose sight of their careers. In fact, that mutual respect is what turns the fake relationship into something new. Love builds on a bedrock of respect in a way that is rare to see in the genre. 

This isn’t just a love story; it’s also a story about finding yourself and defending yourself in love. The arguments we see between Adam and Olive always push their relationship further. Whether it’s boundary-setting or helping each other push further in their careers. While miscommunication is, of course, rampant in the third act, what makes this romance work is how much Adam respects Olive, not just as a woman or lover, but as a scientist. 

The Love Hypothesis is not just a love story, but also about finding oneself. 

The Love Hypothesis isn’t about Olive losing herself in love; it’s about her being affirmed through it. The romance that develops comes from a place of respect and admiration of work first, before it blossoms into what we see on screen. And in all honesty, it was hard not to see my own romance in it, even if just a sliver. 

When I asked my now-husband why he wanted to start dating me, nearly 13 years ago, he told me it was because I was getting my PhD. He was in his last year of his Master’s degree in Biology, and I was just starting graduate school. But knowing that my intelligence and drive were attractive meant the world. With Olive and Adam, professional admiration matters as much as the love that grows. 

The Love Hypothesis may differ from its source material, but what makes it special is how much the story invests in relationships that aren’t just about romance. For Adam and Olive, respect starts their bond after the fake relationship begins, admiration grows from that, and eventually becomes something great. But it’s not just our main couple; the Prime Video Original film also devotes ample time to Olive’s friendships. 

Friendship also gets its time to shine, an area rom-coms sometimes neglect.

Adam isn’t everything in Olive’s life; he’s just a special part of it. She has friends that she loves and protects, and when she makes decisions, she isn’t just making them for herself. Olive’s selflessness in friendship is one of her strongest qualities, and the way that Ahn and Olive support each other, and even Malcolm, makes for a rom-com that believes in healthy relationships across the board, not just in love.

As a romantic comedy, The Love Hypothesis hits every mark that it needs to. It sticks to the tried-and-true formula that we’re used to, using a trope that never fails to deliver. But what makes the film special is the heart it finds in the respect and care between lovers and friends. 

The Love Hypothesis is streaming now, exclusively on Prime Video.