'The Love Hypothesis' Fails the Rom-Com Chemistry Test (with Linda Holmes)

It Was A Book First

Hosts Sophie and Rudy, joined by NPR critic Linda Holmes, critique the Prime Video adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's 'The Love Hypothesis'. The

Key takeaways

• The film's adaptation of the 'fake dating' trope feels hollow due to a lack of compelling motivation for the characters.
• Lily Reinhart and Tom Bateman are noted for a lack of palpable chemistry, which undermines the romantic tension.

Main topics

• Book-to-screen adaptations
• Rom-com tropes

Notable quotes

I think the book is better. I think it made me care more about these characters.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a cautionary tale about the difficulties of comp

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:09) I'm Sophie and I love books. Speaker 1 (0:11) I'm Rudy and I love movies. And this is It Was a Book First, the podcast about new book-to-screen adaptations. Today, we're conducting an experiment that does not follow protocol. We're discussing The Love Hypothesis, a new streaming rom-com on Prime Video that stars Lily Reinhart and Tom Bateman. The Amazon MGM film is based on Allie Hazelwood's 2021 novel of the same name, which is adapted from the author's Star Wars fan fiction, Head Over Feet. which was originally published in 2018. Speaker 2 (0:41) If you're new here, Rudy and I are culture reporters, and on this podcast, we discuss the page-to-screen adaptations that everyone's talking about. I read the book, we both watch the TV show or movie, and then we dissect the differences and what we thought of the new adaptation. And yes, that means there are going to be spoilers throughout for both versions of The Love Hypothesis. Speaker 1 (0:59) Next week, we're sticking to the romance genre, but adding a psychological thriller element for Verity, an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover book starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett. Speaker 2 (1:11) Reminder to like, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get podcasts. Follow us on Instagram at itwasabookfirstpod, watch this episode on YouTube at itwasabookfirstpodcast, or visit our website, itwasabookfirst.com. Have a question or want to reach out? Email us at itwasabookfirstpod at gmail.com. Speaker 1 (1:29) Before we test the love hypothesis, we are thrilled to welcome a very special guest to the pod. Linda Holmes is a longtime cultural critic for NPR, the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, and the author of three novels, including her latest, The Rom-Com, Back After This. Linda, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank Speaker 3 (1:48) you so much for having me. I'm excited Speaker 2 (1:49) to be here. Speaker 1 (1:50) We're excited to have you here. Speaker 2 (1:53) Very exciting for me. I think that Pop Culture Happy Hour is the first podcast I ever listened to. And I have been a devoted fan ever since. And so we're thrilled to have you here. And we also worked together at Random House when I was doing some of the social media for your wonderful rom-com. That's so cool. That is Speaker 3 (2:10) right. That is right. We go back a long way. And I'm an avid follower. I'm an avid follower of you and your dog on Instagram. Thank Speaker 2 (2:18) you so Speaker 3 (2:18) much. Sophie's dog, Simon, is the dog mayor of New York City. If you don't know, now you know. He Speaker 2 (2:25) is both of our claim to fame. So it's Speaker 3 (2:27) very Speaker 1 (2:27) helpful. It's true. Now, Linda, you are kind of like a rom-com expert. I mean, I don't know if you'd call yourself a scholar, but like you kind of feel a bit like a rom-com scholar. Speaker 3 (2:39) I've probably spent. as much time, you know, thinking and talking about rom-coms as I wouldn't say anybody, but, you know, many, many people and have written, I think at least, at least back after this, I would qualify as largely rom-com, not necessarily a hundred percent rom-com, but, but yes. So I have, I have written in this, in this realm. I have analyzed in this realm. I have certainly watched many good and bad. rom-coms. So I'm here for it. Speaker 2 (3:11) Yeah. And before we get into the love hypothesis a little bit, I'm curious if there are any rom-com book, you know, book to screen adaptations that stand out in your mind from the past as, you know, particularly good ones that are some of your faves. It is so Speaker 3 (3:27) funny because I actually think adapting rom-coms from novels to films is really, really difficult. Speaker 3 (3:37) I think that that that compacting of a story from novel length to to film length, when you have to hit certain plot points along the way, which you obviously do in any romance. And and then when you have to have a certain amount of like banter and talk, as you do in in rom coms generally, I actually think it's really hard to do. And I'm trying to think of like, what are the, what are the rom-coms that came from books that I really love? Speaker 1 (4:08) And Speaker 3 (4:09) I'm coming up a little bit short. You're Speaker 1 (4:13) not, yeah. You're not wrong. Speaker 3 (4:15) Just because, I mean, for one thing, for a long time, they haven't made that many of them. Speaker 1 (4:20) Yes. And Speaker 3 (4:21) a lot of the things in this area that people sometimes talk about as rom-coms adapted. from books are not rom-coms. Like The Devil Wears Prada is not a rom-com. It's just a comedy with women in it, which for some reason sometimes causes Speaker 2 (4:34) people Speaker 3 (4:34) to call it a rom-com, but it isn't one. It has rom-com Speaker 1 (4:37) elements, but it's not a strip-a-little- It has a boyfriend. It has a boyfriend, Speaker 3 (4:41) but I would not call it a rom-com. Well, the relationship is- Speaker 1 (4:45) A workplace Speaker 3 (4:45) drama. I Speaker 1 (4:46) was going Speaker 3 (4:46) to Speaker 1 (4:46) say Speaker 3 (4:46) the Speaker 1 (4:46) relationship is really with her job. Speaker 3 (4:48) Right. And Speaker 1 (4:49) her Speaker 3 (4:49) aunt more than it is the boyfriend. And you can sort of- contort that into being constructed like a rom-com sort of, although in any romance, you're supposed to sort of have a happily ever after. And she does not have a happily ever after with that job. So she does Speaker 2 (5:05) with independent media, though, at Speaker 3 (5:06) least Speaker 2 (5:07) for like 20 years. Speaker 3 (5:08) It's true. So so I'm I'm struggling to think of of ones that I think have worked really well. I think, you know, we're just kind of getting into an area. where they're making more of them um yes you know streaming wise i would say i liked the red white and royal blue adaptation i don't know if i thought it was like totally successful sure but i basically enjoyed it and liked it and thought it captured at least some of what i thought was was cool about that um Speaker 2 (5:39) yeah yeah and this This might be a good transition to getting us into the love hypothesis, which is, I think, something that you just mentioned is sort of the timing and the pacing of these things. You know, a lot of rom-coms, the love hypothesis in particular, are sort of what we'd call a slow burn romance. So this is, we've called it a trope, a style, whatever, where most of the book is spent in yearning. And the whole point is the big payoff. I think, you know, I just read the book of the love hypothesis before watching it. as a standard. And I think it was like 65 % in before we got to that big chapter 16, 16. And so how you do, that takes a lot more than an hour for me to read through 65 % of a book or watch an hour of a movie or something. And so I think these things, you're really touching on that. Speaker 1 (6:38) You're both bringing up an interesting point, which is this feels more like a romance book to me, right? Like more than like a rom-com and they kind of turned it into a rom-com. Am I like wrong about that, Sophie? Speaker 2 (6:52) No, this is definitely a rom-com in the read, for sure. It's a rom-com with one of the longest sex scenes I've ever read in my life, but it is indeed a rom-com. And I will say to the point that most of the book is banter, and in my opinion, not particularly successful banter, but it's a lot of like, oh no, I have sunscreen in my hands. What am I going to do with Speaker 1 (7:15) the Speaker 2 (7:15) sunscreen? Ah, I have to rub it on his back. Oh no, what do I do? For like six pages. Speaker 1 (7:20) So Speaker 2 (7:20) yeah, it's... definitely rom-commy. Okay. Speaker 1 (7:23) Okay. Well, Sophie, do you want to start by talking about the book? Oh, sure. A little bit and maybe how this, I mean, really this, I think as we mentioned in the intro, this did not start as a book, but this started as fan fiction, which is not uncommon. What is it? Fifty Shades of Grey began as Twilight fan fiction, right? Speaker 2 (7:45) So yeah, this was. fan fiction first. So Allie Hazelwood wrote this. She herself was a neuroscience professor until a year after this book was mainstream published. So this is very much based in her own sort of world. But yes, this was Star Wars fan fiction between Rey and Kylo Ren. And she published it to a website called Archive of Our Own. It was published as Head Over Feet. And then a few years later, she basically rewrote it and took out any Star Wars name that existed. And it was published by Berkeley, which is part of Penguin Random House in 2021. This was a huge bestseller. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for 40 weeks. And it was a really, really big one on TikTok. You know, 2021 is around the time that book talk was just booming and really stepping into support. into supremacy in the industry. And I think this is a book that I would very much associate with that time in book talk that communities were really passionate about. And wow, what do I want to say about this book? Speaker 1 (8:50) Okay, I'm just going Speaker 2 (8:52) to be really upfront. I did not like this book. I did not think it was particularly well-written. I found the characters and storytelling to be thin and the premise to be somewhat absurd. Speaker 2 (9:05) I think that as we head into the movie where I am disappointed is that I actually saw quite a bit of potential for a movie adaptation of this book in the read and was really hoping that the movie was going to solve some of the things I didn't like about the book. And I don't feel that that was accomplished either. And so this is one of those beloved properties that I now, as a person who came to it from the outside, I'm kind of sitting here being like, sorry, what was everyone talking about? Yeah. I mean, when you say the Speaker 3 (9:37) premise is absurd, one of the interesting things about this book and movie is that it, it. It involves, as many stories do, you know, you'll hear a lot about a book falling into one of several different romance tropes, right? It falls into enemies to lovers or it falls into there's only one bed or it falls into, you know, what this one does, which is fake dating. But truthfully, and there are many, many, many fake dating books out there. And in the movie, and I think even more in the book, the characters are very. consciously aware that there's a romance trope of fake dating and they sort of talk about it which i Speaker 2 (10:17) i Speaker 3 (10:17) find like weirdly i don't know i found a little off-putting but i um but it also involves you know a little bit of what you might consider enemies to lovers and then even more of what i guess gets referred to as grumpy sunshine which i i think for a character based on kylo ren I sort of feel like grumpy is a little too soft for a murderous dictator. But it is that idea of like mean, usually in a straight romance, usually mean man, nice woman. And so to me, these tropes are a little bit, it gives the book a little bit of an uphill battle because the whole mean man, nice woman thing always is a bit off-putting to me. Speaker 1 (11:04) And Speaker 3 (11:05) then... the fake dating thing you have to execute so well, or it really makes the characters seem ridiculous because in this, in this story in particular, and maybe I'm jumping into, to Sophie's chat here, but I don't think either one of them presents a particularly compelling reason why they would be doing this. And that Speaker 2 (11:31) creates a real problem. for the story, I think. Linda, I couldn't agree more. My first note in my notes app from reading this was ridiculous premise. And it's simply because so in We Should Explain for anyone who hasn't seen or read it, the premise is that the main character played by Lily Reinhart, her best friend on, likes the guy who... In the book, it's her ex-boyfriend, which I think makes a little bit more sense, at least. In the movie, it's just a guy that she had a crush on two years ago. And so in order for her friend to think that she's not into the guy that her friend likes, she makes out with a random man and just pretends they are together. What? Speaker 1 (12:16) Yes. Speaker 3 (12:17) And sort of grabs him in the hall and kisses him, which they kind of make a joke out of the non-consensual nature of it. But it's not maybe that funny. In the same way that they kind of when when he and she eventually talk and they make this agreement to to fake date, they sort of blow past this question of like, is this really something we should be doing since he's clearly more powerful at the university than she is? And there's a kind of a blowing past that about, you know, it's okay because blah, blah, blah, something, something, doctoral candidate students and postdocs. And it's okay because we don't work in the same field or whatever. But like both the non-consensual thing and the power imbalance thing kind of get quizzed right by. And I was not fully convinced by the whizzing. And Speaker 1 (13:07) just played for laughs. Speaker 1 (13:10) Yeah, it's very bizarre. So I came to this story with very little context. My context was this was Star Wars fan fiction, which I still can't really wrap my head around. Don't try. Speaker 2 (13:22) This Speaker 1 (13:22) was apparently the same story, but just with Star Wars character names. So Kylo Ren, Rey, and then also like Poe Dameron and the other characters from... the sequel trilogy. That's what Speaker 3 (13:37) I learned from Wikipedia that like they all map onto. Yeah, they Speaker 1 (13:41) all map onto a character, but they're also student, you know, a student and a professor. And that is the same concept. Speaker 3 (13:50) Is Kylo Ren a professor in this fan fiction? Speaker 1 (13:53) Yes. It doesn't, it sounds like it does not take place in like the Star Wars universe necessarily. It's just the characters are like. named after Star Wars, which makes it even more baffling to me. Speaker 3 (14:06) Are there Jedi and stuff? I don't Speaker 2 (14:10) think Speaker 3 (14:10) so. Speaker 2 (14:10) They're just studying diseases? No, I really think they're getting their PhDs. Yeah, Speaker 1 (14:16) I think it's genuinely... Okay, this is blowing my mind. I was going Speaker 3 (14:19) to tell you, Speaker 2 (14:21) in some ways, this makes more sense to me. Speaker 3 (14:24) Because I was having a really hard time figuring out how... Like what if they're professor, if they're a professor now, what were they in the original thing? Like I was like, aren't they Speaker 1 (14:35) like related at the end of the trilogy? Were Speaker 3 (14:37) they Speaker 1 (14:37) teaching at like Jedi school? Speaker 3 (14:39) Or I was trying to figure out how that would work. But I guess if they're all just like college pals, in a way it makes more sense to me. Sure. I Speaker 1 (14:47) guess it makes more sense in that concept. So this is all I know is this. And then I've seen the press tour. that Lily Reinhart and Tom Bateman have been on for what feels like months trying to promote this movie before it came out. We'll get into the press tour. I want to give a little bit of context on the movie and then we can dive a little bit more into the plot. So this was directed by Claire Scanlon, who directed Set It Up, which is a 2018 Netflix movie that I really liked starring Zoe Deutsch and Glenn Powell. Yeah, that kind of broke Glenn Powell in a lot of ways. And I think Zoe Deutsch as well. The screenplay is by Sarah Rothschild, who wrote a Netflix movie called The Sleepover, which I had never heard of and did not look particularly good. This adaptation was actually announced pretty quickly after the book was published, October 2022. They announced that Lily Reinhart and Tom Bateman were in it in July of last year, and then it was shot in July and August. It's worth noting that Netflix is adapting another Hazelwood book, Deep End, which it sounds like might be a little more graphic than this one. Speaker 3 (15:52) How? Speaker 1 (15:54) I didn't read too much into it. Is it also Speaker 3 (15:56) one of the STEM books? Because I know she has these STEM books, but she also has paranormal books. Oh. Yes. No, this is Speaker 2 (16:03) one of, she does. She has two new paranormal books. This is one of the STEM books. And I think what's interesting, and actually the actors in this commented on this in an interview, is like these characters exist in. some of her other books. So Speaker 1 (16:16) bizarre. And so it's Speaker 2 (16:16) like, but those books are with Netflix and these ones are with Amazon. And so are there going to be other people who have to play those in the Netflix one? Got it. Speaker 1 (16:26) Yeah. I don't know. I guess we'll find out. So as mentioned, Tom Bateman plays Dr. Adam Carlson. Who is he? Speaker 2 (16:36) Who is that man? I'm being completely serious. Speaker 3 (16:39) Who is the actor? Speaker 1 (16:40) Yeah, Speaker 3 (16:40) like, is he in anything? Well, okay. So... The thing is, are we going to talk about this? Go ahead. Yeah. So here's the thing. Tom Bateman, the actor, is married to Daisy Ridley, who played Ray in the Star Wars movies. And there's a character in the love hypothesis who is named Tom Bateman. Tom Benton. Speaker 1 (17:04) Tom Benton. But Speaker 3 (17:05) still. Who was named after Tom Bateman in the original book. So Tom Bateman is in a movie with a character named Tom Benton, who was named after him because he was married to Daisy Ridley, who was the inspiration for the original fanfic. Speaker 1 (17:25) Yeah. Speaker 2 (17:27) And he's also playing a character named after Adam Driver, Speaker 1 (17:30) which is also just making this even more of a mind meld. Speaker 2 (17:34) Do we think Adam Driver knows what the love hypothesis is? Is he aware of this movie? Speaker 3 (17:39) I'm sure he would rather not be. I don't Speaker 2 (17:42) know Speaker 3 (17:42) whether it's been forced Speaker 1 (17:43) upon him in some way. Speaker 3 (17:44) He's Speaker 1 (17:45) probably aware, but he also seems like the kind of guy who would try to avoid this kind of thing. I suspect he doesn't have a lot of interest in Speaker 3 (17:52) the world of fan fiction. I Speaker 1 (17:53) watched the... documentary about megalopolis the francis ford coppola movie that um he is in and he's the only person who doesn't main star who does not sit for an interview which i think tells you something about adam jaffer Speaker 2 (18:07) uh lily reinhardt plays olive smith who Speaker 1 (18:10) is a i would argue until the like two thirds through the movie, a sort of asexual biology PhD candidate at Stanford. She's demisexual. Speaker 2 (18:19) Demisexual, I'm Speaker 1 (18:20) sorry. Speaker 2 (18:20) It's Speaker 1 (18:20) very Speaker 2 (18:20) clearly explained to us in the movie. Speaker 1 (18:23) She's researching early detection of pancreatic cancer. Tom Bateman's character is like a tenured professor and researcher at Stanford whose students all hate him because he's awful and they nicknamed him Dr. Evil. We've got Rachel Marsh who's been in the FX series Adults. She's playing the best friend Ann who is there to... bring out Olive's personality and help her see the world in a new way. We've got Jaboukie Young-White as Olive's roommate Malcolm, kind of underused in this. I know him from The Daily Show. I know he's been in a bunch of other stuff as well. And then Nicholas DuVernay as Jeremy and Artie Frischman is playing Tom, the aforementioned character named after Tom Bateman, who becomes kind of important as the story moves on. So Sophie, you outlined kind of the setup of what this is, which is this is a fake dating situation. Fake Speaker 2 (19:15) dating, enemies to lovers, sunshine to evil, slow burn romance. Speaker 1 (19:19) As you mentioned, the premise is just like so stupid to the point where 15 minutes into this movie, when it's very obvious that the best friend is into this guy, Jeremy, but doesn't want to date him because Olive was once into him. I go, oh. So this whole fake dating thing is just going to be so her friend can date this guy. Why are we even making this a movie? Like, what is the point of this? And then it gets even more absurd when we find out that the reason that Dr. Evil wants to go along with this is because he is considered a flight risk by the university because his friend, the aforementioned Tom, is trying to lure him to Harvard to continue his research. And Stanford thinks that because he has nothing tying him down, he has no family, he has no girlfriend, not even a dog, that he will leave Stanford at a moment's notice. So he thinks that by dating one of the PhD candidates. Speaker 2 (20:18) A student. A Speaker 1 (20:19) student. That Speaker 2 (20:19) it's going to make him look so good. It'll make him look good to the faculty. Speaker 1 (20:23) Yeah. Ridiculous. Premise. Ridiculous premise that I like had to. work through for the first like half an hour. Speaker 3 (20:31) And I'll tell you, as they set up, you know, who on is and they sort of introduce you to Jeremy and you see a little bit of on and Jeremy flirting. I was very much sitting there being like, can the movie be about them? Because one of the things that can happen in a romance or in a rom-com, one of the things that can happen is you can end up with main characters who are surrounded by friends who are more interesting than they are. And that's not necessarily the fault of the performances. And it's not even, you know, the main characters have so much plot work that they have to do that they kind of get stuck with these. somewhat ridiculous as you've been talking about kind of ridiculous plot machinations while the friends just kind of get to be whether you're talking about Rachel Marsh who plays on who I think is really charming and lovely in this or Javikian White who I think same funny charming they kind of get to go off and be fun and you a little bit have the leads dealing with some kind of leaden plot So I think one of the things that's interesting is that as