‘The Love Hypothesis’ is a Mostly Predictable and Mostly Sweet Rom-Com

September 22, 2026

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My hypothesis is that plenty of people will watch this movie (CREDIT: Prime Video/Screenshot)

Starring: Lili Reinhart, Tom Bateman, Rachel Marsh, Jaboukie Young-White, Nicholas Duvernay, Arty Froushan

Director: Claire Scanlon

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for A Notable Deficit of Shyness in the Bedroom

Release Date: September 23, 2026 (Amazon Prime Video)

What’s It About?: It’s hard to think straight in an academic setting. Olive Smith (Lili Reinhart) can certainly attest to that. She’s a biology PhD candidate at Stanford who cares about two things above all else: finding a cure for pancreatic cancer, and her best friend Anh (Rachel Marsh). Regarding the latter, she attempts to convince Anh that she’s over their mutual crush Jeremy (Nicholas Duvernay) by impulsively kissing a random guy in a hallway. Unfortunately, that random guy turns out to be Dr. Adam Carlsen (Tom Bateman), the professor with the most hardass reputation in their department. But somehow, he’s actually willing to enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement with Olive: they’ll pretend to date each other so that her friends can date without feeling guilty and so that Stanford can be convinced that he’s sufficiently committed to his current location for them to release his research funds. Olive might think that she’s objective enough not to catch feelings, but it can get a little slippery when you’re your own test subject.

What Made an Impression?: Getting to the Revelations: The Love Hypothesis is based on Ali Hazelwood’s beloved 2021 novel of the same name, which I bought and devoured just a couple weeks before the movie’s release. When I’m reviewing a movie that’s an adaptation, I don’t always (or often) focus on its fidelity or deviation from the source material. But in this case, it’s the perfect opportunity to do so. With that in mind, I’ll highlight that there’s a major revelation that’s treated as a climactic moment at the end of the book, but in the movie, it’s treated as a more casual revelation as the first act transitions to the second. And honestly, I think it makes sense to reposition in that way. It was kind of drawn out on the page, and it’s ultimately not the biggest deal in Olive and Adam’s journey (though it is meaningful in its own way).
Adaptational Flexibility: To quickly sum up the rest of the changes from page to screen: a few supporting players are dropped, some conflicts are compressed, and certain moments of character development are subtly but significantly shifted. These alterations will certainly stick out if you’ve read (or re-read) the novel as close to watching as I have, but none of them fundamentally change what this movie is all about. Instead, they feel like alternative scenarios that Hazelwood herself very could have considered when writing the book. Think of them as shifting puzzle pieces instead of chemical reactions resulting in a new substance.
The Passion Can’t Be Denied: There’s an effort to characterize Olive as a demisexual, a fairly new term used to refer to people who can only experience sexual attraction upon developing a strong emotional bond with someone. It’s a little bluntly stated in the screen version, though we certainly do see that bond being formed. The moment of consummation is a lot more intense than you might expect from something with such a frothy premise and color palette. I don’t know how much Lili Reinhart was focusing on the demisexuality of it all while calibrating her performance, but she and Bateman certainly forged the requisite connection.
Looking for Meaning in a Meaningless World: During a sequence at a campus picnic, there’s a random shot of an extra chowing down on some food. I don’t know if the editor was having a bit of fun, or if that was just more or less unintentional. But either way, it made an impression on me.
Shrinking: With the built-in audience that a beloved book provides, one would think that The Love Hypothesis would be a slam dunk proposition as a theatrical release instead of the straight-to-streaming arrival it’s been fated to. Perhaps that lack of immersion is why some of the scenes that should have had my heart singing at full volume instead fell a little flat. Thus, I must recommend that any of you who are planning to watch must do your best to recreate the theatrical experience at home. So invite a whole bunch of friends, project it on the wall, set up a full-service concession stand – whatever you can manage! And then hopefully we’ll have some more evidence regarding my hypothesis that all movies should be released in theaters.

The Love Hypothesis is Recommended If You Like: AO3

Grade: 3 out of 5 Observations

‘Forbidden Fruits’ is Stylish and Witty, But Narratively Frustrating

March 26, 2026

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: Sabrina Lantos/Shudder

Starring: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain, Gabrielle Union

Director: Meredith Alloway

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Supernatural-ish Violence and a Round of Sexual Romps

Release Date: March 27, 2026 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Clothing store employees Apple (Lili Reinhart), Cherry (Victoria Pedretti), and Fig (Alexandra Shipp) run their little corner of the mall with a unique brand of witchy energy. That mostly consists of following strict interpersonal rules of conduct, dropping performative bons mots about femininity, and hitting their sales goals. When they lure over Pumpkin (Lola Tung) from the nearby pretzel store into their circle, she at first seems like a perfectly natural addition, but soon enough she’s upsetting the status quo. As it turns out, she just might know a heck of a lot more about these fruity gals than she initially lets on. Eventually they may very well have to confront the demons from their past instead of just hanging out in their weird little bubble.

What Made an Impression?: A Foreign Object: There are certain movies that make me go, “Nobody talks like this. Nobody behaves like this. This is not how the world works.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, those flicks are right up my alley. But in the case of Forbidden Fruits, my reaction is instead, “Maybe there are some people who understand this language, but alas I’m not one of them.” Perhaps I will come to understand it one day, but for now it just feels like a plate of spaghetti nonsense thrown against the wall.
The Quip Hit Rate: While my Overall Vibing Level with Forbidden Fruits was fairly lukewarm, I must admit that it did amuse me here and there. It’s definitely not all bad when one character drops an all-time zinger like, “My job doesn’t define me. My hotness and personality do.” Flashes of wit are definitely present. More than flashes even! Director Meredith Alloway and her co-screenwriter Lily Houghton (the latter of whom wrote the play that FF is based on) undeniably have a knack for tickling our ears, and I don’t mind giving it up for them in this department.
A Turn for the Bloody: Forbidden Fruits has one of those resolutions that is liable to make everyone in a crowded theater stand up and declare in unison, “That’s where this was going? Why wasn’t that clear earlier on?!” On top of that, there’s an end credits scene that looks like it’s setting up a sequel, which is an oddly audacious move for a humble indie flick. It’s analogous to a 10-episode streaming TV season that doesn’t start moving the plot forward in any significant way until Episode 8. Before then, all we have to subsist on are Vibes.

Forbidden Fruits is Recommended If You: Wish that all movies were just a variation of The Craft

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Dead Dads

‘Chemical Hearts’ Alternates Between Low-Key and a Cascade of Emotions

August 19, 2020

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Chemical Hearts (CREDIT: Cara Howe/Amazon Studios)

Starring: Austin Abrams, Lili Reinhart

Director: Richard Tanne

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: R for A Sex Scene, I Guess, But It’s Restrained Enough That It Really Should Be PG-13

Release Date: August 21, 2020 (Amazon Prime Video)

Oh, adolescence, when our lives really begin AND end. We don’t fully become who we truly are until we reach our teenage years, and adults are still basically teenagers who somehow managed to make it out of high school intact. Or so Chemical Hearts would have us believe. For all its talk of full-to-bursting emotionality, though, this movie is actually fairly low-key relative to other flicks about teens enduring love and trauma. It’s a young person’s film, with a young person’s sense of the world, but it keeps its head on straight and its feet planted securely.

The action starts out at the school newspaper and expands from there. A few minor conflicts are introduced, but they’re soon handled efficiently to everyone’s liking, and I certainly appreciate the maturity on display. But some potential mysteries linger for longer. Will they come to a head? Before we find out, we must first get to know Henry Page (Austin Abrams), who’s all set to be the editor of the paper and eager to learn about his new transfer classmate/colleague Grace Town (Lili Reinhart). She gets around with a cane and says little about her past, but she’s willing to let a friendship blossom as she and Henry walk to her house every day after school so that he can then use her car to drive himself home.

It’s no surprise that Henry and Page’s hearts gradually become bound up in each other. They initially bond over his attempts to sound like a cool literate soul (he mispronounces the last name of her favorite Chilean poet) and ultimately they just realize how much they support each other. But what is surprising, considering the genre and both lead characters’ penchants for overdramatization, is how understated their courtship plays out. There’s a sex scene at one point that is especially tender and sweet, focusing as it does on these two lovebirds doing their best to be present for each other.

If Chemical Hearts had ended right at that happy point without delving too much into Grace’s backstory, I think I would have been generally satisfied. But of course, it is impossible to completely avoid massive drama rearing its insistent head. It’s revealed along the way that Grace was in an accident and that she lost someone very close to her and has a rocky relationship with her mother. She lives with the post-traumatic stress that comes with all that in her own unique way, and as it may appear to Henry and some viewers, it feels real. This strain of practically operatic emotional pain isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but in this case, it at least doesn’t feel like the cosmos is cruelly toying with these young people. I’m not sure I buy Henry Page’s thesis that you’re never more alive than when you’re a teenager, but I can buy that his story is sufficiently worthy of my attention and my affection.

Chemical Hearts is Recommended If You Like: The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, Five Feet Apart

Grade: 3 out of 5 School Papers

‘Hustlers’ Makes Its Case for Joining the Crime Film Canon

September 11, 2019

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CREDIT: Barbara Nitke/STX

Starring: Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Mercedes Ruehl, Cardi B, Madeline Brewer, Lizzo

Director: Lorene Scafaria

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for Incidental and Purposeful Strip Club Nudity, A Few Roofies and Cocaine Bumps, and Some Crimes-Gone-Wrong Chaos

Release Date: September 13, 2019

There’s a scene early in Hustlers when Jennifer Lopez masterfully, with almost arrogant panache, swings around the pole to the tune of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal,” and it looks like this is going to be the distaff answer to Magic Mike. For too long, cinematic lady stripping has focused merely on the exploitative, and now it is time to treat it like an art form! J. Lo’s command of physics and her own body at 50 years old is indeed a breathtaking wonder to behold, but this is merely the amuse-bouche. Soon enough, Hustlers develops into an epic crime drama, a sort of female spin on Goodfellas. It only spans a few years versus the decades of Scorcese’s gangster classic, but it doesn’t take too long for the relationships at the heart of this scam to become deeper and deeper and more and more complicated.

Calling a new movie “the female (previous movie)” is usually frustratingly reductive, but in this case, the comparison can be unusually illuminating. I recently read a Time article that cited political science research about the differences between the typical reasons men and women get into politics. Where men tend to do so for the status of the position, women tend to run so that they can effect social change. While watching Hustlers, I wondered if the same rubric could be applied to explain the different rationales why men and women enter into a life of crime. So many cinematic male gangsters and fraudsters (Henry Hill chief among them) become what they become because of how cool it seems. But Constance Wu’s Dorothy and Lopez’s Ramona come up with their scam so that they can take of their kids, parents, grandparents, and sisters at the club.

The scheme at the center of Hustlers involves Ramona, Dorothy, and their colleagues luring their Wall Street customers into a blacked-out trap, drugging them enough that they’re willing to drop tens of thousands of dollars in one night at a strip club (but not so much that they fall asleep or OD). They justify their actions by figuring that these guys can afford to have a few g’s go missing. Plus, in light of the 2000s financial crisis, they’re essentially guilty of stealing from the rest of the country and getting away with it. The trouble comes when it becomes clear that some of the girls’ marks are not as invincible as they try to rationalize, and they’re in fact putting them in the same economic bind that they’ve been fighting themselves to get out of. The sisterhood that’s built by the Hustlers scam is full of genuine love, and that’s why it’s so bittersweet when the bubble is burst. If you’re looking for a story that epitomizes doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, this is the best option in quite some time.

P.S.: There’s a running gag in which Lili Reinhart vomits in high-pressure situations, and it never fails to deliver.

Hustlers is Recommended If You Like: Goodfellas, Magic Mike, Thelma & Louise, Economic Revenge

Grade: 4 out of 5 Scores