Netflix’s ‘Love Hard’ is a surprisingly fun Christmas rom-com
They say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This generally applies to movie titles as well. People get degrees in marketing and make buckets and buckets of money coming up with movie titles.
Yet somehow a Christmas movie called “Love Hard” got the green light on Netflix. Even as a layperson, I know this is a terrible title and certainly not one that would catch the average viewer’s eye in the right way to get them to select it on a Saturday night with the family.
All that said, “Love Hard” is a fun, cute and heartfelt Christmas movie that turns a few film tropes on their heads in a delightful fashion.
“Love Hard” follows Natalie Bauer (Nina Dobrev), an unlucky LA gal who can’t seem to find any decent guys in the City of Angels. When her friend takes her phone and changes her search radius to the entire U.S., she matches with a cute guy named Josh from upstate New York who seems almost too good to be true. They connect on so many things, despite his favorite Christmas movie being “Love Actually” and hers being “Die Hard.” After several long, heartfelt phone calls over consecutive nights, Natalie decides to surprise Josh by flying to Lake Placid, New York, to spend the holidays with him.
Arriving at his house, she first meets his parents, Barb and Bob, and his grandmother, June. When she sees Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) for the first time, the truth is finally revealed: She’s been catfished.
It turns out Josh used a photo of his childhood/former friend Tag (Darren Barnet) because every time he’d used his own photo in the past, he didn’t get any matches. Using Tag’s, he was inundated with attractive women swiping right. Not wanting his family to learn the truth, Josh begs Natalie to continue the ruse that they are dating and in exchange, he’ll help her get with Tag.
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