The Love Hypothesis – Adaptation Review

I’ve been looking forward to this movie since it was first announced. I have loved The Love Hypothesis since I first read it in 2022. The characters, friendships, romance, and everything in between – this rom com is truly incredible. As a celebration of the movie release, I wanted to do a review once I watched it. There will be spoilers from this point on!

Immediately I was overjoyed that they kept the prologue scene in the movie, literally everything about it was perfect! The contacts, the blurry eyes, and the sage advice. I adored the way it felt exactly like reading the scene felt the first time around.

I adored the music in this movie. When Gracie Abrams played I knew I was in for a ride. Every song felt perfectly selected for the vibe of the movie and for each scene – they even played Rey’s Star Wars theme (if you know, you know)

There were some scenes in the book that were omitted from the movie, and I was disappointed about some of them, but I totally get why. Every minute of this movie showed the story of the book in it’s totality, despite some things that were missing. Going in to any adaptation, you have to prepare for things to be scrapped from the source material and I felt like they did an incredible job in choosing what to include.

I wish you could see yourself the way I see you

Ali hazelwood – The love hypothesis

One thing that I do wish they had included was Holden. I thought that his exclusion did take from Adam’s character. Holden was an important aspect in the book as he showed the more “human” side of Adam, the side that shows he has deeper feelings besides those that he has for Olive. Personally, I thought that Adam felt less well-rounded as a result.

One thing the movie got exactly right though, was Ahn and Olive’s friendship. I got eight minutes into the movie before the lantern scene made me tear up. Their bond was the centre of this story and I adored the importance they placed on them.

I also loved the inclusion of Olive’s demisexuality – it is an important element of her character and something I especially loved about her. I was hoping for there to be more of an emphasis on her identity, as there was only one mention, but seeing representation for the Ace-spec community (that is rarely ever shown, least of all in main characters) was quite emotional for me.

There were so many scenes that I absolutely loved: The flu shot scene was both hilarious and heart-warming, the party scene with Adam involving himself with her friend group, the sushi scene with heartfelt confessions and stunning cinematography. Adam and Olive’s relationship shined in each of these scenes and showed their natural progression into love.

Overall, I believe this adaptation did an incredible job. They kept close to the source material and made some very smart choices in the selection of scenes that they chose to include. The combination of multiple scenes from the book into singular scenes in the movie made sense and never made the viewer feel that there was anything lacking. The Love Hypothesis movie is 100% one of the closest and best adaptations I’ve seen in recent years – rom-coms are truly back and here to stay!