Photo Courtesy of Cosmopolitan

“Love Hard” appears to be a beautiful love story between Natalie Bauer (Nina Dobrev) and Josh Lin (Jimmy O. Yang). The unpredictable couple met on a dating site after countless failed dating encounters on Natalie’s part. She thought Josh was the man of her dreams and risked everything to fly 3,000 miles from California to New York to surprise the “love of her life” for Christmas.

Upon arrival, Natalie quickly realizes it was all a mistake when she sees Josh for the first time in person and his face is far from the one in the profile. After running away from her problems and heading to the local bar to get drunk, she sees the “real” Josh, a.k.a. Tag. Natalie and Josh strike a deal where she will pretend to be his girlfriend until Christmas, and he will help her get with Tag. 

It was completely obvious from that moment that Natalie would end up falling for the real Josh instead of Tag. Just like most other cliché Christmas rom-coms, almost the entire movie is predictable. What is different about “Love Hard” is the way they discuss the matter of being catfished. Yes, Natalie expresses feeling betrayed and hurt, but then she seems to get over it rather quickly. Josh barely shows remorse for how he treated Natalie, and in the end, everyone makes him out to be the victim. 

Although it was Josh’s personality that Natalie fell in love with in the first place, she was flat out catfished. He used his elementary school best friend’s images to draw women in, which is what caused Natalie to swipe right. By having the two leads end up together, Netflix is romanticizing catfishing, which is simply not OK. The plot sends out the wrong message that even if you catfish someone they could still end up falling for you. Rewarding the catfisher is never the answer.

In one of the final scenes, Natalie comes clean to everyone in Josh’s life by expressing how sorry she was for pretending to be someone she’s not and everyone sympathizes with Josh. They actually feel sorry for the guy that catfished a girl and caused her to fly 3,000 miles to surprise him. Even though it was obvious this was the direction “Love Hard” was going in, it was still uncomfortable to watch.

The movie itself had subpar writing, average acting, cliché undertones and of course your classic Christmas rom-com plot points. It was an average, run-of-the-mill romantic comedy, even though it lacked comedy and the romance was all wrong.

If you are very much into Christmas rom-coms, unfortunately, “Love Hard” is a letdown.