Love Hard

Directed by Hernán Jiménez, Love Hard follows Nina Dobrev’s Natalie Bauer as she travels across the country to surprise the hunky man (Darren Barnet’s Tag) that she’s been communicating with via a dating app – with complications ensuing after it turns out that “Tag” is actually a man (Jimmy O. Yang’s Josh) living in his parents’ basement. Filmmaker Jiménez, armed with Danny Mackey and Rebecca Ewing’s script, delivers a mostly watchable (yet entirely forgettable) romantic comedy that benefits from the affable, charismatic work of its stars – with Dobrev and Yang’s winning efforts going a long way towards elevating the sporadically less-than-fresh material. And although the picture contains a few sequences that are just a little too cute for their own good, including a silly scene wherein Natalie and Josh sing an updated version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” Love Hard boasts a briskly-paced midsection that effectively establishes and perpetuates the agreeable bond between Dobrev and Yang’s respective characters (and it doesn’t hurt, surely, that the actors possess a fairly palpable amount of chemistry together.) It’s a shame, then, that the movie demonstrably runs out of steam as it progresses into a padded-out and frustratingly generic third act (ie that fake breakup just feels endless), which ultimately does ensure that Love Hard wears out its welcome long before the end credits finally start to roll – with the final result a hit-and-miss endeavor that just squeaks by thanks to its uniformly affable performances and smattering of memorable moments.

**1/2 out of ****

Leave a comment