Our first Christmas movie of the season, Love Hard begins with a young woman in LA going on bad dates and writing about them professionally. Natalie is getting tired of the game and is looking for real love, which sets her up for the ultimate catfish from a guy across the country.
After a cross country trip and an embarrassing realization of her situation, Natalie decides to make the best of the trip and collaborate with her catfisher Josh on a new scheme. And each scene tries to outdo the previous scene for awkwardness or insanity, just like Josh and his brother vying for their parents attention.
“Just trust me” is what Josh keeps saying to Natalie as their scheme threatens to go off the rails and have all their new lies exposed. The only real question of the movie was whether Natalie would end up with Josh or the other guy Tag.
Some of the themes and side notes touched on are hotly debated topics in pop culture: is Die Hard a Christmas movie, is Love, Actually the best Christmas movie ever, and can we retire Baby It’s Cold Outside finally?
With super low expectations we were delighted in its quality and humor, appalled by the unbearable embarrassment and more than satisfied with the feels at the end.
Feel Good Rating: 7.3
Lake Placid Realism: 1.9 (it’s way colder)
Feel Good Movie Ratings 