The worst thing about The Hating Game's film adaptation of Sally Thorne's 2016 novel is that it almost achieves the magic, as obscene as it is heartwarming, that makes the original work so beloved. But "almost" isn't "quite," and the film versions of office assistants Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman, played by Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell, respectively, fall short. (In Lucy's case, literally, ha ha ha.)
I'd better tell you right off the bat that this book is one of my favorite rom-coms, so I was always going to be a little ~harsh~ with my review. And the movie, which premiered in December 2021, isn't great. It's fine. Fine in the sense that if I were flipping channels 10 years from now and saw it at 2 p.m. on TBS, would I stop and watch it? Probably! But oh well, such a huge opportunity was missed, which seems to be mostly due to a lack of chemistry between the two leads, a watered-down story, and, finally, budget (some scenes worthy of a Lifetime movie take place here).
Director: Peter Hutchings
Writers: Christina Mengert, Sally Thorne
Stars: Lucy Hale, Austin Stowell, Damon Daunno
But first, let me address some positives. Like, for example, I was thrilled to see the film was rated R, which allowed Lucy to swear like any normal person (and to comedic effect, especially during the paintball scene). It also gave us the gift of Josh showing his butt during the sex scene, which had a refreshing female-gaze twist (i.e., Lucy fully clothed while Josh is the one who's naked). Many of the main moments in the enemies-to-lovers story also remain the same, something I was excited to see.
But as for the aforementioned lack of chemistry, was it all that hit and miss? At times, like in the elevator scene above, which has been gloriously preserved in GIF format, you could feel the energy between them crackling. Occasionally, the story lived up to Lucy's assertion that "hating someone feels eerily similar to being in love with them," and offered some truly sensual moments.
Where things seem to fall short, at least in my opinion, is mostly due to Stowell's performance as the earnest, bitingly sharp Josh. Hale is great as Lucy (they have the same name, after all), and somehow *does* manage to create chemistry with Mr. Stowell, but he's just... there. The book Josh gives as good as he gets (sorry, those are Sally Thorne's words, not mine), but the film Josh is a bit bland during the sparring sessions with his officemate.
As for some differences! The location has been moved to New York; Many details of the wedding have been changed for the film: instead of a big party in Australia, it's a tiny affair in upstate New York; The Importance of Robin's Egg Blue has been changed to Hunter Green; and some key scenes (the big sex scene at the wedding, Josh confronting Lucy at the bar at the beginning when she forgets her things in the car, him taking care of her when she's sick, etc.) have lost the sexual tension that makes them so perfect on paper.
The Hating Game is adorable, and I don't regret renting it. Like I said, it's fine. I wish we could go back to the golden age of rom-coms, when they were actually—ha ha!—good. (And a time when Duffy's "Mercy" wasn't used in every opening scene. It's a hit, but Hollywood! There are other songs! I swear!) Rom-coms deserve better.
Meg Ryan didn't have a fake orgasm at Katz's for this! Julia Roberts didn't have to try that hard with her iconic "big, HUGE mistake" line just for this! Jennifer Garner's entire performance in "13 Going on 30"? This is why? All of those movies have a certain corny quality—that element is practically baked into the genre—but what's helped them endure as classics is that, on the part of the studio, the writers, the director, etc., they treat them as grounded stories worth telling, with characters who are taken seriously, no matter how frivolous, absurd, or lovelorn their decisions are.
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