The Love Hypothesis (Prime)
Prime Video’s The Love Hypothesis brings Ali Hazelwood’s bestselling romance novel to the screen, starring Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman as Olive Smith and Dr. Adam Carlsen. The 2026 romantic comedy has plenty of ingredients that caught our attention at Girls Gone Hallmark: fake dating, a grumpy professor, a woman in STEM, quick banter, and a whole lot of chemistry – including one hotel scene people are definitely talking about. So, yes, we’re stepping outside the Hallmark universe for this one! Wendy and Megan are reviewing The Love Hypothesis, breaking down what worked, what didn’t, and whether this buzzy book-to-movie adaptation lives up to the hype.
The Love Hypothesis is an Amazon Prime Original and premiered exclusively on the streaming network on September 23, 2026.
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Listen to Girls Gone Hallmark’s Review of The Love Hypothesis
Who Stars in The Love Hypothesis
- The Love Hypothesis was directed by Claire Scanlon who is best known in the rom-com world for directing Netflix’s Set It Up.
- Sarah Rothschild wrote the screenplay, adapting Ali Hazelwood’s bestselling 2021 novel of the same name.
- Lili Reinhart stars as Olive Smith. She is best known as playing Betty Cooper on Riverdale.
- Tom Bateman stars as Dr. Adam Carlsen. He is recognizable as Bouc in Murder on the Orient Express.
- Rachel Marsh plays best friend Anh. You may recognize her from Netflix’s Unstable.
- Jaboukie Young-White plays Malcolm. His previous roles include Quinta Brunson’s ex-boyfriend Eric on Abbott Elementary. He is also a comedian and former Daily Show correspondent.
- Nicholas Duvernay appears as Jeremy. He recently appeared in The White Lotus.
- Arty Froushan appears Dr. Tom Benton. You might recognize Arty from House of the Dragon.
Spoiler warning: everything below this line gets into plot details, including the ending.
Megan: 4 out of 5 stars. Wendy: 4 out of 5 stars. Both of us wanted to note that grading it against a Hallmark movie puts it at a 10 out of 10, so the 4 is on a rom-com scale, not a Hallmark one.
Wendy’s first impression came with a warning label. “I’m no prude, but somewhere during that hotel scene even I was like, should I give you two some privacy?”
Megan’s was shorter. “Damn, I love a good rom-com.” She also came in with a head start, because she read the book when it came out and has read nearly everything Ali Hazelwood has written since. The Love Hypothesis was Hazelwood’s 2021 debut, and for Megan it was the read that launched a thousand reading ships. Five years is long enough that most of the plot details were gone, but the giddy, kicking-your-feet feeling came right back.
What We Liked
- Fake dating, handled well. This is Wendy’s favorite trope, going all the way back to Can’t Buy Me Love, and the movie commits to the bit right down to picking an end date for the fake breakup.
- Olive and Anh. Our favorite part of the movie, and the most well-developed relationship in it. The flashback to their first class together, Anh pulling Olive out of the back row because “we’re here to be seen,” and the holiday trip home all do the work of establishing that Anh is ride or die.
- Olive herself. Lili Reinhart plays her as smart, ambitious and good at her job, but also awkward and a little insecure. Her whole identity isn’t organized around finding a boyfriend, which is not what we’re used to watching.
- A woman in STEM. Hazelwood writes unapologetically smart women, and the movie keeps that. We almost never get to sit inside this world.
- The dialogue and the pacing. This movie moves. It’s quick, snappy and it sounds like 2026. Olive saying “I gotta lock in” is a very Gen Z line that still lands for a Gen X viewer.
- Malcolm. Jaboukie Young-White gets the funniest lines, and the late turn where he admits he’s only in the program because his parents want him there gives him some real weight.
- Adam’s dry humor. He’s intimidating at first, and then he starts to open up around Olive and turns out to be funny.
- The soundtrack. Wendy’s single favorite thing on the list. It sounds young and current without trying too hard.
What We Wished For
Megan’s biggest wish was more room. The adaptation is done well, but a limited series could have taken this to another level, and under two hours leaves a lot on the floor.
- Adam is underdeveloped. He starts out so stiff and then he softens, and there’s no visible path between those two versions of him. We never learn much about what made him this way. Being a hard professor because he had a hard professor is pretty one-dimensional.
- Olive needed a little more, too. We know she’s brilliant and we know why she chose her field. What we never learn is why she shrinks when she has to advocate for herself. Imposter syndrome? Being the only woman in the room? Wendy wanted an answer.
- Dr. Tom Benton’s reveal lands late. There are a couple of looks that make you wonder, and then the mask comes off at the end. In the book you know he’s bad long before he does anything. Experiencing it alongside Olive has its own power, and it can also feel like it comes out of nowhere.
- The middle of the fake dating gets skipped. The best part of this trope is the stretch where they have to be affectionate for show and it starts to feel real, and neither of them can say so. We needed multiple instances of the hand-holding and the arm around the shoulder before we got to the hotel. As written it’s close to a 180.
- Adam breaking things off. This one made Wendy mad. She’s a grown woman working on a PhD. Let her make that call. As Megan put it, “She’s not some flighty teenager who’s going to give up on her life’s dream because they slept together last night.” His behavior there diminishes his own opinion of her.
- Tom’s downfall wasn’t satisfying. Adam confronts him in front of the whole class while everyone films it, which is very 2026. Wendy wanted Olive to be the one to take him down. Adam didn’t need to come save the day.
- What the movie left in the book. In the novel, Olive reads as close to asexual and is uncomfortable with the idea of intimacy, and that’s a whole arc. You can sort of infer it from Reinhart’s performance, but the movie doesn’t go there.
- The hotel scene runs long. We both said it. That one might be the Hallmark watchers in us, used to a fade to black.
Did You See That?
This one is loaded, and almost all of it runs through Star Wars.
- The Love Hypothesis started life as Star Wars fan fiction. Ali Hazelwood didn’t like where Kylo Ren and Rey’s story went, so she rewrote it on a fan fiction site, and it became this book. (For what it’s worth, Fifty Shades of Grey started as Twilight fan fiction.)
- Tom Bateman, who plays Adam, is married to Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey. We think that casting is a coincidence, which somehow makes it better.
- The Gracie Abrams song that plays early in the movie is another thread back to the same place, since her dad, J.J. Abrams, directed the Star Wars films that Rey and Kylo Ren appear in. The music supervisor said the Gracie Abrams idea came from a TikTok.
- Listen for the menacing music under Adam as he walks in to go after the bad guy. It’s built to call up Kylo Ren and Darth Vader. Once you notice it, you’ll also notice he wears head to toe black for the entire movie.
- Girls Gone Hallmark team member Mackie caught this one: “Head Over Heels” by The Go-Go’s plays over the mid-movie montage, and it’s the same song that opens 13 Going on 30. The movie was intended as an homage to classic rom-coms, so we’re counting it.
- Olive’s coffee order is giving girl who loves Christmas so much she orders a double mocha peppermint hot chocolate.
Would a Hallmark Watcher Like The Love Hypothesis?
Our answer is maybe, which Wendy correctly called a non-answer.
Here’s the case for yes. It’s a well-made enemies to lovers rom-com that leans on the exact tropes Hallmark uses constantly. The chemistry is there. There’s a real sense of yearning. The people are beautiful. We felt things while watching it.
Here’s the case for no. It’s rated R, and it earns that. There’s a long, very steamy sex scene and a lot of swearing. None of that bothers us, but it will bother a viewer who comes to Hallmark specifically for clean television.
So if spice isn’t your thing, this one probably isn’t for you. If you watch Hallmark and you also watch a broad variety of other things, we think you’ll have a good time. One listener, Elizabeth, watched it only because we announced we’d be reviewing it, and she loved it.
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