Love Hard

If someone you never met before asked you to fly across the country to spend Christmas with them, would you do it?

In Netflix’s latest Christmas Romantic Comedy, Love Hard, LA native Natalie (Nina Dobrev) believes she has found her match through a dating app and takes the risk of spending Christmas with him in New York. When she arrives to meet him in person for the first time it turns out she has been catfished by Josh (Jimmy O. Yang). The man she thought she was meeting is actually Josh’s friend Tag. Both embarrassed they break a deal where Natalie will pretend to be Josh’s girlfriend in front of his family and he will set her up with Tag.

Love Hard isn’t adding any new commentary on the romantic comedy and never learns into being a Christmas movie, but it is a cute watch. Where it misses the mark is when it tries to go for cheap laughs in the middle of sweet moments. There really isn’t a plot it heavily relies on trends. Natalie provides a lot of pop culture commentaries like her love of Die Hard and the problematic lyrics for Baby It’s Cold Outside. It feels like these were added to make it feel relatable but it doesn’t work.

Dobrev and Yang have great chemistry as friends in all their scenes together, it seems like they are just having fun with the material. The romantic element between the two lacked. They possess strong likeability which weirdly excuses their lies throughout the film.

A light-hearted film with themes of lying makes it an interesting watch that leaves viewers confused about the overall message.