Finding Love in the World of Online Dating... (Love Hard rom-com movie review)

When November 1 rolls around each year, you can count on a couple of things. First, every store dramatically slashes the prices on their thematically-bagged candies (as though they’re channeling Michael Myers tracking down neighborhood teens in Halloween). 

Second—and more importantly, here—all of the streamers shift every Christmas-y movie or show to the top of their “trending titles” and “holiday picks” lists (or whatever other catchy phrases they're hoping will elicit clicks). 

Once you remove the classics and perennial family-friendly fare, though, what’s left is an ever-growing yet somehow surprisingly-limited Santa’s bag of tricks… with more lumps of coal at the bottom than fabulous gems (no matter how pretty the outer packaging may appear in the promos).

I know this… yet still find it impossible to resist at least a couple new holiday offerings each year. [Some people tell Alexa to play Christmas music nonstop; me, I watch a few rom-coms. To each their own, right?] 

All of which brings me to Netflix’s newest entry, Love Hard… and the fact that it was basically a must-watch, for me, given the subject matter (online dating, which I—like the majority of other singletons out there, today—have amassed a boatload of experience in).

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The Premise: Attractive, single Natalie (played by Nina Dobrev)—a staff writer at a thinks-it’s-so-hip-it-hurts online magazine based in L.A.—primarily earns her paychecks by going on online dates, then writing about how very un-awesome they were. [As an Angeleno, I can attest that her experiences are plenty real… although to be fair, I’ve also had scores of great dates.] When Natalie’s best gal-pal, Kerry (Heather McMahan) realizes that Natalie’s online profile is only set to a 5-mile radius, which seems to her the whole problem, she changes it to nationwide… and in no time, Natalie makes a connection with Josh, a hunky guy living in Lake Placid, NY.

Over the next couple of weeks, Natalie has the best “dating” experience she’s ever had, as she and Josh get to know each other via texting and long phone calls… so much so that, on a whim—based on Josh’s spoken wish that they could spend Christmas together—Natalie boards a plane for a surprise visit to the opposite coast. 

The problem with her spontaneously-romantic plan? It turns out that she’s been catfished (deliberately misled about Josh’s appearance, in other words)… and the ruggedly-handsome, tall guy she thought she was talking to, is actually a shorter, pleasantly-nebbishy man (who currently resides in his parents’ basement… oy). 

Still, for reasons—the real Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) agrees to set her up with the man in the photo, an old grade-school buddy of his, Tag (Darren Barnet), if Natalie pretends to be Josh’s girlfriend around his family for the week leading up to Christmas… as well as the fact that her boss is hounding her for a story—Natalie decides to stay, and see if she can make lemonade out of this lemon of a sitch.

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My Take: Everyone knows [or should know, unless they just fell off the proverbial turnip truck] that there’ll be a happy ending, of some sort. It’s a holiday rom-com, so a HEA is a given.

Everyone also knows there’ll be no shortage of hackneyed tropes trotted out. (Let me repeat: it’s a holiday rom-com. Certain boxes must be ticked off the list!!)

So, setting aside those two necessities as part-and-parcel of a holiday production, how does the rest of the movie fare? Surprisingly, I thought it was a lot of fun, and felt the underlying heart and soul of the story came across well. 

Yes, there are some absolutely cringeworthy moments (vegetarian Natalie not batting an eye saying she can “eat a little meat” when it means going on a date with Tag-the-Hunter), and things that sort of happen for no apparent reason (a weird "sexy" karaoke scene that doesn’t lead to anything, except a bunch of awkwardness), etc., … but I think it’s totally legit cutting the movie—and the characters—some slack, here.  (How many of us haven’t, at some time in our lives, done something against what we believed/wanted/felt, OR something completely embarrassing… for a crush, or for someone we desperately wanted to impress? Everyone does cringeworthy things, so why shouldn’t characters in movies occasionally do so, too?)

Speaking of characters, they—and the actors playing them—are what sells even the weaker parts of the story, and director Hernán Jiménez coaxes good work from them. Dobrev (Natalie) and Yang (Josh) are compelling as singles hoping against hope to find the loves of their lives, and have fine chemistry together, as they learn how to be friends. Josh’s family—dad (James Saito), stepmom (Rebecca Staab), grandma (Althea Kaye), and older brother (Harry Shum, Jr.)—are equally well-cast and absolutely delightful, as people who (mostly) just want the very best for the youngest member of their family. And Natalie’s boss, Lee (Matty Finochio) is as skeevy a bad boss as you’d expect.

Still don’t believe me? Okay, then let me offer you one quote as evidence of good in my recommendation: “Love doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be honest.”. [Kinda hard to argue with that, eh?] 

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to like this one as much as I do… but [at least for those of us with ample experience in the online dating world] there’s a lot of enjoyment and fun to be had with Love Hard. 

Plus, any movie that makes multiple references to both of my favorite Christmas (or “Christmas”, lol) movies—Love, Actually and Die Hard—clearly has its finger on… well, my pulse, anyway. ;)

If you’re looking for a new, fun, feel-good holiday flick, you could do a lot worse than streaming Love Hard. 

~GlamKitty