Prime Video has dropped a trailer for its film adaptation of Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis.
Hazelwood’s romance novel, published in 2021 by Berkley, follows Olive Smith, a graduate student in biology who fakes a relationship with a professor, Adam Carlsen, hoping to make her best friend comfortable dating Olive’s ex-boyfriend. A critic for Kirkus called the book “fresh and upbeat, though not without flaws.”
The film adaptation is written by Sarah Rothschild (The Sleepover) and directed by Claire Scanlon (The People We Hate at the Wedding). Lili Reinhart (Riverdale) stars as Olive, while Tom Bateman (Murder on the Orient Express) plays Adam. Other cast members include Rachel Marsh (The Morning Show), Jaboukie Young-White (Dating and New York), and Nicholas Duvernay (The White Lotus).
The trailer for the film opens with Reinhart saying in a voiceover, “Scientists tell us that molecules will stay in motion until they find a match.” Later, Reinhart visits Bateman in his office; he tells her, “I have accepted your proposal to deceive your friend into believing that I’m your love interest.”
“Sounds really bad when you put it like that,” Reinhart says.
“Stanford may not be renewing my grant,” Bateman replies. “They consider me a flight risk. A serious girlfriend might change their minds.”
As the trailer comes to a close, Reinhart tells Bateman, “It’s a scientist’s worst mistake. It’s a false positive, thinking something’s happening between us when clearly it’s not.”
The Love Hypothesis is scheduled to premiere on Sept. 23.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
