Netflix, Take Me Away: The Mindless Pleasures of Love Hard

I’ll admit to being somewhat of a scrooge when it comes to made-for-TV holiday movies. The hokey storylines, the contrived family drama, the possibility that anyone could break into song at any moment — I find it all so unappealing that I’ve developed an actively antagonistic relationship with the dozens of titles that land on cable TV and streaming every November and December.

With this in mind, I didn’t expect (nor did I want) to enjoy Love Hard, but the romantic comedy sucked me in, my cold, black heart be damned. Like so many other Netflix rom-coms, Love Hard is not “good”, per se, but it does offer a mindless escape, which would seem to be the point.

Part You’ve Got Mail, part Cyrano de Bergerac, Love Hard stars Nina Dobrev as Natalie Bauer, a woman so unlucky-in-love that she’s turned her dating misadventures into a popular (if embarrassing) online column. After a string of misses, Natalie’s friend encourages her to expand her dating pool beyond Los Angeles, and before long she connects with a seemingly-perfect guy living in Lake Placid, New York. Finally ready to move things into the real world, Natalie flies across the country to surprise him for Christmas… only to discover that she’s been catfished by a nerdy-type hiding behind photos of his rugged ex-best friend.

Natalie’s story could end there, but in true Christmas movie style, there’s a silver lining to her misfortune. Within hours of meeting the real Josh Lin (comic Jimmy O. Yang, who played Jian-Yang on Silicon Valley), Natalie learns that her digital crush actually does live in Lake Placid, and — wouldn’t you know it — frequents the store where Josh works. The catfish and his victim strike up a deal: if Natalie pretends to be Josh’s girlfriend for his family’s holiday celebration, he’ll help her land Tag (Never Have I Ever’s Darren Barnet), the outdoorsman whose rugged jawline attracted her eye in the first place.

Any self-respecting rom-com fan can probably figure where this story is headed, but the journey Love Hard takes to get there is surprisingly entertaining. The bulk of the film’s conflict centers on Natalie’s ability to juggle her two “relationships” (one fake, and one real), but the rom-com freshens up this age-old trope with solid jokes and a strong coterie of supporting stars, including Harry Shum Jr., James Saito, and Takayo Fischer, who play Josh’s overachieving brother, no-nonsense father, and horny grandmother, respectively. Save for a few scenes in which Natalie and Tag are hanging out solo, or she’s speaking with her unreasonable boss, we spend the bulk of the film with the Lin family, a decision that helps flesh out Josh’s character and redeem him in the wake of his catfish debacle. Yang and Dobrev don’t exactly have electric chemistry, but by emphasizing his family life, Love Hard is mostly able to overcome this deficiency, as viewers get the sense that Natalie’s feelings for Josh are developing alongside her feelings for his family.

Heartwarming rom-communism (as Ted Lasso once put it) aside, Love Hard did leave me with a number of questions, including, but not limited to:

• Natalie is apparently some kind of blogger, but hasn’t written anything in two weeks? What has she been doing at work every day?
• Why does this movie present Lake Placid as a one-stoplight town with a single Uber driver?
• What does Darren Barnet’s skincare regimen involve? The actor plays both the 17-year-old Paxton Hall-Yoshida in Never Have I Ever and 30-year-old (his real age) Tag in Love Hard. Is it hyaluronic acid?
• Did the writers really think “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” is a fresh take? Have we not been having this debate for 30-plus years?

Of course, these are the kind of questions you’re supposed to have while watching a romantic comedy, especially one screaming to be viewed with a glass of spiked eggnog or mulled wine in hand.

If you can get past the generic, unwelcoming title (I guess it's supposed to be a play on Die Hard, but “Fishing for Love” would have been more apropos), Love Hard is a solid early holiday season watch — one untethered to politics, the pandemic or most anything else likely to cause strife among mixed company; just feel-good holiday vibes, and a grandma eager to climb aboard Santa's proverbial sleigh.

Love Hard premieres Friday, November 5 on Netflix.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.