'The Hating Game' flip-flops its way to frustration
Hulu
Somewhere within “The Hating Game” exists a sharp critique of how attraction may obscure red flags. As sexual tension boils, especially in a potentially forbidden setting, how much do people really know about each other? And how much do they forgive in service of chemistry?
Needless to say, the lightweight and exhausting romantic comedy “The Hating Game” is not here for that type of thought, or any thought at all. Casting two very charming, good-looking people (Lucy Hale, Austin Stowell) and then turning them into juvenile morons, the movie would seem to have been written by a child, except my 4-year-old son has a very strong sense of what makes a good story. And this ain’t it.
Following a merger between a well-intentioned publisher and a moronic corporate force for literary destruction, Lucy (Hale) and Joshua (Stowell) not only share office space but are so contentious that their dynamic can impact entire company gatherings. It’s almost like they’ve never seen an old-fashioned, conflict-turns-to-romance love story from the ‘40s, or even when “The Shop Around the Corner” became “You’ve Got Mail.” Worse, while ridiculous shenanigans usually come with the territory with this sort of thing (if they get together too well, too quickly, there is no movie), few romantic comedies are as obnoxiously erratic as “The Hating Game,” in which the script (adapted by Christina Mengert from Sally Thorne’s novel) never really gets to the bottom of the interpersonal nonsense and the main characters just collide and separate and connect and run and really just make you want to groan, not gush.
That’s even worse in the presence of Danny (Damon Daunno), a co-worker with a crush on Lucy who is insufferable in all three of his functions in the story. He sucks a lot of energy from a movie that actually has several laughs and plenty of heat between its leads (who, by the way, are competing for a promotion and go out of their way not to examine the aforementioned red flags, instead just pretending “stalker” is a cute label if you say it with the right tone). But a story about the merit and feeling that actually hides behind surface animosity shouldn’t, in fact, be much, much, much worse than its best moments.
D+
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