‘Love Hard’ (2021) Review: A Rom-Com Cliché That Fails to Surpass the Classics
In the spirit of Christmas, Netflix is welcoming a new slate of cliché romantic comedies just in time for the holiday season! Hernán Jiménez’s Love Hard starring Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries) as Natalie, a journalist and a hopeless romantic who is also unlucky in her romantic life. Natalie matches with who she thinks is Josh (Darren Barnett, Never Have I Ever) and travels across the country to surprise him. To her surprise, she gets catfished by the real Josh (Jimmy O. Yang, Silicon Valley), who is equally unlucky in love. To get back in Natalie’s good graces, Josh decides to help set her up with the person that she matched, but she must decide who she wants to choose at the end.
Love Hard could be described as a lighthearted romantic comedy with scenarios that almost feel like it’s been done before, and that is exactly what it is. Modern romantic comedies do not possess the kind of spark and chemistry witnessed in classic rom-coms. The genre seems to follow a formulaic narrative where there is always a young and romantically unlucky woman desperate to find her true love. Her impression of the perfect man is idealistic and wildly different from the man who she really ends up with but in the course of changing her personality and lying to herself to achieve her supposed ‘perfect man’, she comes to fall for a completely different man that loves her for who she really is.
In a nutshell, Love Hard fully embraces these rom-com stereotypes. Sure, there are heartwarming moments between Josh’s family and Natalie, particularly in the scenes portraying the togetherness and comfort that Natalie seeks for after her mother’s death. The movie talks about loss and grief and the importance of sticking with a family, regardless of how hard things can get. Josh and Natalie have insecurities and fears that they must get over. Josh’s inability to stand up to his older brother (Harry Shum Jr.), who bullies him and his dream of making candles that have a more masculine smell (let’s not even go there). On the other hand, Natalie changes herself, or rather, dumbs herself down to make her more desirable to Tag (Barnett). While the immediate reaction to being catfished would have been to leave and go back home, Natalie stays at the request of Josh who wants his family to think that he has a serious girlfriend now.
While they are both helping each other out in the most bizarre situation, the reality and the question on everyone’s mind would be, why didn’t Natalie just leave? Well, that is answered much later in the movie, she likes Josh. On this ridiculous journey of dishonesty and even more catfishing, Natalie and Josh are each other’s lifeboats. They motivate each other to face their fears which range from being scared of heights to family bullies. That is what makes Love Hard so heartwarming.
Love Hard is nothing special. As far as romantic comedies and Christmas movies go, this mash-up of the genre really has not recovered since Bridget Jones, The Holiday, and When Harry Met Sally… (although, the latter title is fit for all seasons). Love Hard doesn’t try to be any of those movies, but the magic and chemistry between the romantic leads are just nowhere to be found. What happened to this genre? Where are all the chemistry and passion between the two leads? Certainly, audiences won’t find it in this movie.
Edited by: Raayaa Imthiyaz
