Adapting a book into a movie or tv series will always come with risks – mostly in the form of opinionated fans. The Love Hypothesis is no different in that the fanbase is rabid, particularly about the book and the ‘ship fan-fic that inspired these characters to begin with.
For those who missed it, author Ali Hazelwood turned her Rey-Lo (that’s Star Wars‘ Rey and Kylo Ren) love into a full length romance novel. Mostly the connection to Star Wars are the character inspirations and their dynamics… both canonically and in head-canon. The result is The Love Hypothesis, which became a bestselling book turned full length feature, produced by Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels) and directed by Claire Scanlon (The People We Hate at the Wedding). The script by Sarah Rothschild (The Sleepover) is equally impressive as the trio of filmmakers made some incredible and progressive decisions to benefit the story without losing the sparks that made it so beloved.
The Love Hypothesis focuses on Olive, a PhD student at Stanford (played by Riverdale alum Lili Reinhart), who fake-dates a widely feared and hated Professor (Tom Bateman) in attempt to prove to her best friend, Anh (Rachel Marsh), that she’s not interested in the guy Anh has a crush on (Nicholas Duvernay). Convoluted? Yes. Romantic Comedy gold? Also yes. “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.”
Set up with a traditional rom-com format, what these filmmakers created stands apart with their emphasis on building layered characters. Truthfully, something the film does exceptionally well is establish the significance of the friendship between Olive and Anh. Making it clear to viewers that Anh isn’t just Olive’s college bestie, she’s her everything — the only support system and family that Olive has. Although the book absolutely touches on this connection, the movie spends a solid amount of time at the top reinforcing the importance of these two women to each other. And thus allowing the purpose of the dating ruse to stand even more solidly.
I spoke with Cantillon and Scanlon about the emphasis on female friendships, as well as other changes to The Love Hypothesis . See what they had to say, in their own words, here.
Another big change is in relation to Malcolm (Jaboukie Young-White), a supporting character in both the book and the movie. Written on the page, Malcolm was pretty two dimensional as the quippy gay best friend, but the team behind the movie found a way to add layers to his story. Unfortunately, that resulted in cutting out his own love story and eliminated the character of Dr. Holden Rodriguez altogether. Both Cantillon and Scanlon spoke about these decisions, and the improvements they made to Malcolm’s storyline here, but only audiences can answer for themselves if giving Malcolm a richer journey made up for the sacrifice of queer love representation.
The biggest changes in the movie adaptation revolved around the villain of the story, Dr. Tom Benton. His timeline in the movie is shifted, as were his methodology and thus the chain of events. So although his story was altered greatly, the results were the same… eventually. This also allowed the movie to provide more time instances of Olive and Adam bonding, as seen through a montage of reader loved book specific moments.
As a reader, it brought to life my favorite moments, and as a cinephile, it revealed new aspects of the characters which I didn’t know I needed to see. The changes made by adapting the page to the screen really elevated Ali Hazelwood’s story.
The Love Hypothesis is out now, only on Prime Video.
— Yael Tygiel