Film Review: The Hating Game
Images courtesy of Rialto Distribution.
As a long-time fan of the genre, I am not one to degrade the romantic comedy for its silliness. I am here for all the tropes. The will-they-won’t-they plot line, the enemies to friends to lovers, the wedding date, even the overdone New York City setting. They’re tried-and-true. The Hating Game (dir. Peter Hutchings) tries them all, but the rom com charm just isn’t there.
Lucy Hutton—played by Lucy Hale, who also acts as executive producer—is witty, sharp and bubbly. As an executive at a publishing house, Lucy spends much of her workday in a constant standoff with uptight, ambitious officemate Joshua (Austin Stowell) who takes every possible opportunity to push Lucy’s buttons. Lucy and Joshua are competitors more than they are colleagues, vying for the same promotion despite their respective personalities and brands of ambition. Despite their professional gripes, the mounting sexual tension between Lucy and Joshua eventuates in a full-fledged romance in and outside of the office.
There are a few aspects of The Hating Game that make it a fun watch. Lucy and Joshua are presented to us as dichotomous. Even their shared office is split down the middle, Joshua on one side with all black and clean lines, and Lucy on the other with colour and clutter. Hale and Templeman are also both great fits for their respective roles and slot in well to the character tropes assigned to them. It also seems as though set designers worked hard to make opposites attract on the visual front.
Another pleasant aspect of the film is director Peter Hutchings’ intention to give his audience the female gaze. Joshua pines for Lucy significantly more than the reverse, and a key sex scene between the two objectifies him, not her. Ultimately, we also understand that this is Lucy’s movie, as the plotlines hone in on her hopes and dreams.
Not to mention, The Hating Game is an adaptation of the bestselling book of the same name written by Sally Thorne. While I haven’t read Thorne’s romance novel, the film read to me like a fanfiction story come to life. It was entertaining to see the features of the written rom com come to the screen—the office romance, the slow-burn, the fateful misunderstanding that nearly tears the couple apart. I think that the fact that the film originated from Thorne’s work is what made it fun to watch.
While I found Hale and Stowell charming enough, the chemistry between the two fell flat. Too often, dialogue was delivered like words written on a page. The comedic timing wasn’t there, nor was the suspense. Scenes felt choppy, and the film’s low budget was obvious in all the wrong ways. Despite its potential, the lacklustre execution of The Hating Game gives the rom com a bit of a bad rep. And that’s frustrating for a genre devotee such as myself.
Nevertheless, if the release of The Hating Game gives rise to more romance stories being adapted from the page to the screen, I think it will have been worth it. After all, they’re a lot of fun. I just hope the next one relies less on the tried-and-true tropes, and more on the delivery. Chemistry is everything, after all.
The Hating Game is showing in select cinemas now.