dir. Hernán Jiménez
Churning out insipid rom-coms is practically a compulsion for Netflix, so the existence of Love Hard comes as no surprise. A woman on the west coast matches with a man on the east coast in a dating app, only to spontaneously visit him and learn he looks nothing like he claimed. And why shouldn’t catfishing, deceit and manipulation be the foundation of an enduring romance? As the two pretend to be a couple to fool his family, a real affection grows. Of course she finds herself slowly falling irrevocably for the man, even though he’s not the handsome heartthrob he claimed (he still looks absolutely fine, he just dresses like a teenager with a stupid haircut). Thus his lies are excused as a bumbling nerdy mistake, rather than the kind of tactics which routinely lead to abuse, rape, and murder in real life. Same old, same old, but with dating apps thrown in to make it appear modern.