The Love Hypothesis (Movie – 2026)

The Love Hypothesis hit Prime Video recently, and since I already reviewed Ali Hazelwood’s book, I went into the movie with a pretty clear picture in my head of who these characters were and how their story was supposed to unfold. That picture didn’t match what ended up on screen, and I have some thoughts about that, but I want to say upfront that I still enjoyed watching it and I’m glad I did.

For anyone who hasn’t read the book, The Love Hypothesis follows Olive Smith, a PhD candidate in academia, who impulsively kisses her department’s most intimidating professor, Adam Carlsen, to convince her best friend Anh that she’s moved on from her crush on Jeremy. What starts as a spur-of-the-moment cover story turns into a fake relationship with rules and boundaries, and of course those rules start slipping the more time Olive and Adam spend together. Lili Reinhart plays Olive, and Tom Bateman plays Adam, with the movie directed by Claire Scanlon and written by Sarah Rothschild.

My biggest hesitation with the movie has nothing to do with the writing or the plot. It’s the casting of Adam. This is entirely a personal preference thing, because Tom Bateman isn’t a bad actor and he clearly put effort into the role. But the Adam I pictured while reading the book was more towering and more physically imposing, someone whose presence filled a room before he ever said a word. Bateman’s version felt a little too approachable for a character whose whole reputation is built on being terrifying to grad students. It’s a small thing, and I know casting a book character is never going to match everyone’s mental image, but it colored how I experienced a lot of his scenes.

The bigger issue for me was how much the movie cut and rearranged from the source material. Holden Rodriguez, Adam’s best friend and the love interest for Olive’s friend Malcolm, is gone entirely, which also means an entire relationship storyline just doesn’t exist anymore. The breakup between Olive and Adam plays out completely differently too. In the book, Olive ends things after finding out about Tom’s harassment of Anh. In the movie, it’s Adam who ends the relationship, framed as him stepping back so Olive can focus on her career. That’s a huge shift in who drives the emotional climax of the story, and it changes how you read both characters in that final stretch. The confrontation with Tom gets reworked as well. The book gives you a much more satisfying physical altercation in a restaurant, while the movie moves it to a public lecture that Olive ends up watching unfold on an Instagram live stream. It’s a choice that trades catharsis for spectacle, and I didn’t think it was a fair trade.

Even the moments the movie kept intact got trimmed down in ways that impacted the experience. Chapter 16, which readers of the book know exactly what I’m talking about, really spans three chapters on the page and gets compressed into a fraction of that on screen, losing some of the lines fans specifically wanted to see make the cut. Malcolm’s storyline also shifts, with the movie having Adam kick him off the research team and having him drop out of school entirely, a much harsher arc than what the book gives him.

None of these changes ruined the movie for me the way I’ve seen some other reviewers describe online. There’s been major backlash from book fans since this premiered, with people saying the changes to Holden and the ending altered the story so much it barely resembles the book anymore. I understand where that reaction is coming from, especially for readers who were attached to Holden and Malcolm’s relationship, but my disappointment landed more in the range of “this isn’t as good as the book” rather than “this ruined the book for me.” The fake dating setup still works as a device for two people who are bad at naming their feelings to spend enough time together that the feelings become impossible to ignore, and that mechanism carries the movie even when individual scenes get reshuffled.

Reinhart and Bateman have decent chemistry together, and the movie does capture the basic shape of the grumpy academic falling for the woman who refuses to be intimidated by him. It just doesn’t earn the moments the same way the book does, because so much of the connective tissue between the big beats got cut for time.

I’d recommend The Love Hypothesis to all who enjoy Ali Hazelwood’s brand of STEM romance and want a light, entertaining watch, especially if you go in without having read the book recently. If you just finished the novel and you’re hoping for a faithful adaptation, temper your expectations. It’s still a decent rom-com. It’s just a smaller, more streamlined version of a story that had more room to breathe on the page.