Hypothesis Partially Confirmed

Spoilers Ahead!

If you have seen my review of the book and movie version of Howl’s Moving Castle, you will know that one of my concerns with book adaptations is whether they are using the right medium and whether that particular medium captured the book’s overall theme. At least those were the two things that I thought of when I decided to watch The Love Hypothesis on Prime Video. I loved the book version by Ali Hazelwood, so I was excited to see how the movie version turned out. 

The book follows Olive, who is studying for her doctorate in biology. Olive and her best friend, Anh, are in love with the same boy, Jeremy. Olive realizes that Anh and Jeremy are more compatible with each other. However, Anh won’t make a move on him because she doesn’t want to hurt Olive’s feelings. 

Olive decides to kiss the first person she sees to get Anh to realize she has moved on from Jeremy. Unfortunately for her, Olive ends up kissing one of the harshest professors in the department, Adam. Although she is flustered, Adam and Olive are able to come up with a deal. They would fake date so that Olive can prove to Anh that she is moving on relationship-wise, and Adam can prove to the university that he won’t quit his job once they release his grant money to him. Hilarity ensues as they try to make their fake relationship look natural to everyone around them. 

Is the movie able to capture the whimsy and romance in the book? If I am being honest, I would say yes and no. There are a couple of ways that the movie enhances the book material, starting with the fake dating scenario with Olive and Adam. In the book, there really wasn’t a reason as to why Olive would go through all this trouble for Anh. I am sure other people like me wondered why Olive and Anh didn’t talk it out like regular adults. My ultimate conclusion was that they needed some type of scheme to make the plot go forward. 

In the movie, that thought disappears entirely. Don’t get me wrong. Olive’s scheme is still ridiculous. However, a big reason that makes you want to press forward with this scheme is the emphasis on how integral Anh is to Olive’s life. Anh has been a super loyal best friend and has always gone above and beyond for Olive. She helped Olive socialize and participate in different groups, took Olive on vacation with her, and took Olive to her family home so that she wouldn’t spend the holidays alone in the dorms. Anh is the MVP of best friends. Hell, even I wished that I had someone like Anh in my life. She made Olive feel so loved and wanted. That is why, even though the audience might find the fake dating thing stupid, you can give Olive a lot of leeway in her trying to improve her best friend’s life. 

I also love that it elevated the character of Olive. In the book, she was more of a wallflower. She was very skittish and shy around people, especially when speaking. However, in the movie, Olive is very social. She hangs around a lot of people, and she uses humor to break the tension of awkward situations. The only time we see Olive struggle around people is when she is speaking to professionals in her field, which comes out more relatable than awkward. Many people deal with imposter syndrome and wonder if they should be in a professional setting when they don’t have experience yet. However, I am glad that in the movie, we see Olive work on her business networking skills and become more confident in her professional surroundings. 

The progression of Olive and Adam was a mixed bag. If I had never read the book, I would have thought that their relationship went through the normal ups and downs. Olive helped Adam to be a better person. She taught him how to provide constructive criticism instead of crushing his students’ souls. Seeing them deal with conflict was pretty enlightening in the movie. The book version had Olive break off things for a while because she feared she was holding Adam back. However, the movie switched it to Adam stopping the relationship due to fears that he would affect Olive’s progression in the field, and it made him miserable. I found it refreshing to see the guy doing the pining instead of the girl all the time. 

As much as I loved the movie, it did have a few misses. They didn’t show Adam’s friend, Holden, in the movie. While that didn’t ruin the movie, it did take away subtext for Adam’s personality. In the movie, Adam only showed a softer side to Olive. However, in the book, Adam had a friend who knew him on a personal level and gave an explanation about Adam’s harsh personality. It would have been nice to have a fully developed Adam with more nuance, but it didn’t break the story’s flow. 

However, the two changes that I hated in the movie were the villain of the story and Olive being mentored. In the book and in the movie, Professor Tom sexually harassed Olive, and he does get punished for it. What I found unnerving is how they took away the intensity of Tom’s punishment in the movie. In the book, Tom is exposed in front of faculty members, whereas in the movie he is exposed in front of his students. The book held more weight because it indicated an end of his career in multiple colleges because no one would want to work with him. In the movie, we know that he lost the respect of his students and maybe the college. However, viewers didn’t get the impression it would haunt Tom for the rest of his life. 

It brings up a dichotomy in the overall results. Did I hate Tom for getting fewer repercussions? Definitely. I felt like he got by relatively unscathed. However, is it reflective of real life? Unfortunately, yes, if the new scandal facing Cornell University says anything about the state of sexual harassment/assault in our society. A girl was gang raped by a bunch of fraternity members. Just like Tom in the movie, the men in this situation got a slap on the wrist.

Society has an issue with sexual assault/harassment. Despite the damage it causes, it doesn’t seem to be taken seriously. When you think of it in that way, it kind of muddies the water about whether the movie did the right thing in changing Tom’s villain arc. Personally, I wish they did the book version so there would be examples of how the topic of sexual harassment/assault should be treated in society so that things would change instead of keeping up with the status quo. 

The other thing that I hated that they didn’t cover in the movie is the topic of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. There is a low percentage of women in the STEM fields, and it was front and center in the book. Anh did a lot of mentorship and conferences about encouraging more women to be in STEM degree programs. Olive also had a mentorship with Dr. Aslan. She encouraged Olive in her studies and pushed Olive to accomplish her goals. The movie cut that out entirely, with Anh making a passing comment about her and Olive being the only women in their classes and Olive’s relationship with Dr. Aslan completely gutted. 

Did this change break the movie? For people who didn’t read the book, no. The movie is still successful as a rom-com with a completed plot. However, as a fan who read the book, it did make me disappointed.  This movie could have shown how important it is to have women in STEM and help each other to succeed. People could say that the movie could cover only so much of the plot, which is true. It is unrealistic to expect everything to make it into the movie word for word. However, I do think that movies should keep important aspects of themes that can help society rather than leave those things out. 

Overall, I feel that people who haven’t read the book will have a good time with this film. Seeing Olive and Adam’s relationship progress and Olive and Anh’s strong friendship is definitely a highlight of the film and makes you want to root for the characters. However, if you are a fan of the book, it is a little bit of a letdown with the things they chose to leave out. That is why I think The Love Hypothesis should have been a miniseries instead of the movie. The book had excellent commentary on societal issues that a miniseries could have delved into instead of glossing over them like the movie. 

Sources: 

BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5wyzrm0n74ro