Reviewing Christmas-based rom-coms is a bit like critiquing holiday lighting displays—ultimately, it’s about how the bright, familiar pieces are arranged. “Love Hard,” the first of many new Netflix original rom-coms coming this season that will rely on those low standards, gets points for wrapping you up in its wholesome Christmas production design. But the story is a different mess, despite the efforts of the two stars of this “Beauty Meets the Catfishing Incel” riff, Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang.
Dobrev proves she has a neurotic, slapstick-ready spark, and yet this story doesn’t take full advantage of those skills. Instead, “Love Hard” sticks her with easy gags and a broad love story. And then there’s Yang, a stand-up comedian by trade, who is stuck trying to make his nerdy Josh charming with self-sabotage and toxic behavior instead of letting him be funny. The Yuletide small town around them may be covered with tinsel and red and green, but the shallow, just barely funny story of “Love Hard” can’t hardly make you see past the red.
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Directed by Hernan Jimenez and written by Daniel Mackey and Rebecca Ewing, “Love Hard” concerns the sweetest story of catfishing that could ever happen, the type of fantasy shared by people who in real life lie about who they are on their dating profile only to attract a person they might not otherwise be appealing to. In this case, it’s Yang’s Josh who catfishes Natalie (Nina Dobrev), thinking that she’s met, over the Flirt Alert dating app, a rugged guy from Lake Placid, NY who is actually named Tag (Darren Barnet). Natalie, her brain swimming with a deadly mix of Christmas loneliness and attraction to someone she’s never video-chatted with, decides to surprise Josh (again, pretending to be Tag) at his home in Lake Placid for Christmas. Surprise, it’s just Josh, emerging from his basement.
Instead of Natalie storming back to Los Angeles, as the red flags guide her, Josh is able to convince her of a twisted deal—Josh will help Natalie woo local hot man and former prom king Tag, even though Tag has numerous interests that go against her own (which make for sad, not funny scenes of her pretending to like what boring Tag likes). On the other hand, she’ll keep up the girlfriend act for Josh in the process, at least through the holidays. You might be able to guess the lessons learned in this otherwise nightmarish scenario, for a movie that assumes a lot of sweetness will simply come from its underscored, italicized hope that attraction comes primarily from true personality. But “Love Hard” doesn’t hawk that anti-shallow idea enough, and when a movie doesn’t even believe in its novelty message, we especially don’t.
The best thing that can be said about “Love Hard” is that it’s busy. Let’s not forget to mention the subplot about how Natalie also has a job writing about her disaster dating life. That’s one of many pieces here that doesn’t have to be there for the story, but it does help add one more conflict and yet another cozy rom-com cliche. The movie also takes time to invest in time with Josh’s family, and his desire to prove himself to his parents by being associated with Natalie, who initially approve of her simply because she looks like someone like Nina Dobrev. The family stuff can at least make for some passably cute scenes, like with his sassy grandma (Althea Kaye) or mega intense, alpha male brother played by Harry Shum Jr., who takes notes directly from Adam Scott’s character in “Step Brothers.”
Call a lot of “Love Hard” cute, or call it mighty easy, you certainly won’t call it fresh. But in the low expectations of Christmas movies like this (which “Love Hard” has been built for), it’s more here about the missed opportunities for comedy. Some scenarios are built on stock comic set-ups, like the small-town stoner side character (an amazing opportunity it turns out for product placement), the uptight, heath nut boss, or the easy shock laughs aimed for when elderly people are talking about sex. These jokes are old chestnuts, but in the otherwise uninspired universe of “Love Hard” they can be especially hollow.
“Love Hard” is a rom-com by genre constructs that struggles with romance and also comedy, but it does have a genuinely sweet moment in which, of all things, Natalie and Josh duet on the problematic Christmas standard “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” with him changing the lyrics to make it less creepy. For a brief second, the two have chemistry when they look into each other’s eyes, nonetheless in the middle of a twisted, secret agreement that involves them using each other. It’s a robust moment of the movie doing something different with an expected scene. But then “Love Hard” kicks in with another gross act of him trying to control her, because it’s overzealous for conflict, and it kills the high. As in too many other moments here, the movie uses holiday desperation as a cute explanation for manipulation. [C-]
“Love Hard” is available now on Netflix.
