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