Love Hard: A Christmas Tale of How Catfishing Gets You the Girl

Is there any need for a spoiler warning? Because I’m pretty sure everyone at this point knows how these kinds of movies end. It’s that time of the year again – the time for trashy sappy Christmas Romantic Comedies. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve watched my fair share of rom-coms over the years. Some might […]

Is there any need for a spoiler warning? Because I’m pretty sure everyone at this point knows how these kinds of movies end.

It’s that time of the year again – the time for trashy sappy Christmas Romantic Comedies. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve watched my fair share of rom-coms over the years. Some might even call it my guilty pleasure (they’re sappy and predictable).

Rom-coms pretty much have the same storylines, especially the ones made for the holidays. And Netflix is the king of cheesy rom-coms.

Move aside Hallmark, Netflix has got the market cornered

Speaking of trashy Christmas movies, Netflix’s The Princess Switch 3 comes out this month (I’m coming for you).

So, Love Hard tells the story of Natalie (Nina Dobrev), an LA journalist who turns her disastrous dating life into a career.

Natalie finds her dates from a dating app but can’t seem to catch a break – from getting stood up by guys to dealing with cheating husbands. The only good thing to come out of her terrible dating experience is the stories she writes about them for her douchy boss.

After her friend widens her dating app’s search radius to cover the whole country – and not just LA, Natalie finds Josh (Jimmy O. Yang). Josh is the man of her dreams (looks and all).

After weeks of talking and getting attached, Natalie decides to surprise Josh by flying to Lake Placid, New York, to spend Christmas with him. But when she gets there, she discovers Josh looks nothing like his pictures (big shocker), and he lives in his parents’ basement.

Natalie is ready to head back to New York when she discovers the picture Josh used as his profile pic belongs to his friend, Tag (Darren Barnet).

Josh then devises a plot to help Natalie win over Tag by pretending to like the same things he does (extreme sports and books by a pretentious author). Natalie only has to pretend to be his girlfriend in front of his family to make him seem cool. It’s stupid because Josh’s family already loves him the way he is – except for his annoyingly competitive brother (Harry Shum Jr.). 

What follows is a series of shenanigans and cute Christmas movie montages covering up lies and shadiness.

It was good seeing Nina Dobrev on screen again after Vampire Diaries. She was the reason I decided to watch Love Hard even though I knew it’d be ridiculous.

Darren Barnet’s character, Tag, was nice enough – even though we didn’t get to learn much about him. I guess there wasn’t enough time for him with Josh and his family hogging up the screen time. Halfway through the movie, it became less about Natalie and more about Josh.   

We literally learn nothing else about Natalie other than she’s a writer who believes Die Hard is a Christmas movie. And the movie is supposedly about her.

And why are they always stomping on poor dude’s (Darren Barnet) heart in all the Movies and Shows he’s been in? First was in Never Have I Ever, then American Pie, and now this.  

The dude is like the ultimate Trophy Man.

I enjoyed the comedic part of the movie more than the romance. Maybe it’s just me but they should have ended as friends to change things a bit.  

But then again, it won’t be a Christmas rom-com if they don’t end up falling in love (believable or not).

Love Hard was a nice movie to pass time – but not something that’d warrant multiple viewings.