'Love Hard' review: What makes the predictable rom-com relatable and worth the watch 

Love Hard is one of those romantic comedies where you can predict the ending within the movie's first half, but you can’t stop watching. The American-produced rom-com, directed by Hernán Jiménez and written by Danny Mackey and Rebecca Ewing, is available to watch on Netflix from today.

Netflix synopsis of Love Hard reads,

"After meeting her perfect match on a dating app, an L.A. writer learns she's been catfished when she flies 3,000 miles to surprise him for Christmas."

So, how does the story unfold? What makes the film the perfect holiday rom-com despite it being so predictable? Let's find out.

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'Love Hard' synopsis: Spoilers ahead

Love Hard follows the story of a girl named Natalie and her quest for true love, which eventually leads her to get catfished.

Natalie is the atypical career woman who is a columnist making a living out of writing entertainment pieces inspired by her disastrous online dating life. Her boss commodifies her misery and encourages it as long as she turns in fabulous pieces that keep the growing readership entertained. She believes she is destined for this horrible dating life and frankly admits she can’t do it any longer until she finds her perfect match. Or what she thinks is her ideal match, Josh.

In his online dating profile, it appears that Josh is the perfect sweet and sensitive man with a plus side - he is also unbelievably attractive. The two hit it off immediately, online, spending entire days in each others’ virtual company. Come Christmas, Natalie decides to fly 3000 miles from LA to Lake Placid to surprise and meet the guy she thinks will be her happy ending for the first time. Much to her horror and disappointment, she realized she had been catfished. Instead of meeting the handsome hunk, she ends up in the house of a nerdy little guy who lives with his parents. She walks out on him but soon bumps into the guy whose pictures Josh had been using on his profile, the guy she was attracted to, Tag.

Natalie makes a deal with Josh, agreeing to pretend to be his girlfriend for Christmas, and in return, Josh sets her up with Tag. The deal was going pretty well until Josh asked Natalie to marry him to impress his family in the heat of the moment. At the same time, Natalie realizes how different she and Tag are, but she refuses to give up on what she thinks is the 'perfect guy' and keeps making compromises on her beliefs and identity to keep it going. Things soon start going downhill, and eventually, at a surprise engagement party that Josh's parents threw for them, Natalie comes clean with her lie. But that is not the end of it. Things soon start falling into place again, and the movie manages to package itself into a perfectly marketable predictable feel-good ending where Natalie comes back to Josh and accepts him for who he is, and there is your happily ever after.

Love Hard stars Nina Dobrev as Natalie, Jimmy O. Yang as Josh, the guy who catfished her, and Darren Barnet as Tag, who Natalie thinks is her dream match.

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Is it worth your 1 hour and 45 minutes?

After the movie is over, you cannot help but realize that our modern-day heroine is a crossover of Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City and Margaret from the 2009 film The Proposal. The similarities are starkly apparent.

Apart from the predictable ending, what strikes you is a sense of unease as the Love Hard unfolds and you find yourself rooting for the 'good guy' Josh to end up with Natalie, despite the alarming red flag - he lied to her about his identity. And the supposedly independent, self-sufficient, self-respecting woman somehow does fall in love with him, and that leaves you with a sense of shock, even though you could see the ending from miles away.

Love Hard makes for a pretty good lazy Sunday afternoon watch if you are into predictable rom-coms with a happily ever after. And if you are ready to recognize the problematic elements but put aside your principles for an hour and forty five minutes for some cheap thrills, you are good to go too.

Despite being predictable, Love Hard does not disappoint. Catch the Love Hard streaming on Netflix from today.