Why Sisterhood and Science Are the Heart of ‘The Love Hypothesis’
Star and EP Lili Reinhart, actress Rachel Marsh, director Claire Scanlon and producer Elizabeth Cantillon open up about putting a friendship and STEM center stage in the film adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's hit novel.
Some stories refuse to stay on the page. The Hollywood Reporter’s Beyond the Book column explores what happens when books make the leap to screen and beyond — unpacking what stayed, changed, how it was done and why it matters with the creatives who made it.
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[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Prime Video‘s The Love Hypothesis.]
On paper, The Love Hypothesis is a standard fake-dating rom-com between a graduate student and Stanford Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith (Lili Reinhart), and the stern professor Dr. Adam Carlsen (Tom Bateman). But ask the film’s team what the story is really about, and a different pair gets the spotlight.
“This is a story about two friends and what Olive will do for her best friend [Anh],” Reinhart tells The Hollywood Reporter about the two women at the core of the film’s plot.
That’s not just Reinhart’s take. The actress and executive producer says director Claire Scanlon and producer Elizabeth Cantillon originally pitched the film to her in exactly those terms. “What drew me especially to the project was the female friendships and the support,” Scanlon says of her initial interest in the film.
Based on Ali Hazelwood’s 2021 bestseller, Olive and Adam agree to a faux romance scheme to help clear the way for Olive’s best friend, Anh (Rachel Marsh), to pursue her crush on Jeremy (Nicholas Duvernay) — someone Olive once had a thing for. Though book-to-screen adaptations can take liberties, the film’s leading creatives were intent on keeping that loyalty between friends that’s at the heart of the novel intact.
“It’s all leapfrogging off of their bond,” Scanlon tells THR. “What’s most important to them is each other. That’s the catalyst for everything.”
“That’s why I fell in love with the book and the script,” Marsh says. “When I read it, I was just like, ‘Wow, this is so relatable for me in so many ways.’ To have the support [within] a female friendship that Olive has [with] Anh is so important in every aspect of Olive’s life, which kind of drives the plot forward in her relationship with Dr. Carlsen and everything that she wants to accomplish in her life.”
Building a Foundation for Female Friendship
Playing the “best friend“ in the adaptation of a popular romance novel has certain expectations. But the story straying from the typical clichés made the role stand out, Marsh says.
“It’s not really what you typically see in these types of films. It’s really central,” the actress tells THR. “My character is helping form the story, not being added to propel the main [characters’] story forward. It really challenges a lot of those tropes and stereotypes in a way that I hope sets the bar.”
In the book and film, Olive loses her mom to pancreatic cancer when she’s 15. As she pursues her academic ambitions without traditional familial support, Anh takes on a maternal-like role in Olive’s life. Anh’s protectiveness is apparent from the film’s start, including a scene in which Anh encourages Olive to sit with her in the front of their class.
“What was really special about Anh is that she didn’t really even know her, but noticed that she felt isolated and alone,” Marsh says.
Reinhart adds, “The way that we opened the movie is to set up how supportive Anh has been to Olive as a friend so that you would understand why Olive makes the decision to fake date Adam. We really had to show how strong their friendship was and how good of a friend Anh was, and that Olive is equally good as a friend.”
“Anh just became my person. I would do anything for her,” Reinhart‘s Olive says in the film about their friendship.
Anh’s awareness and understanding of Olive become even more apparent well into the film, when Anh reveals that she was always privy to Olive and Adam’s fake romance. Anh can see her friend’s growing feelings for Adam even if Olive doesn’t realize them herself. So throughout the film, she plays along as her best friend falls in love.
“Anh’s very teasing to Olive throughout the whole script because she knows or is suspicious of the fake dating scheme. So she’s really pushing Olive out of her comfort zone,” Reinhart says. “I think that’s why Anh’s such a good friend. I do think friends push each other out of their comfort zones.”
“When you find out that Anh knew all along, it pulls the carpet out from beneath Olive’s feet. But it is wonderful to see that she [Anh] was always looking out for what was best and right for Olive. That just gives you all the feels,” Scanlon adds.
Putting a Spotlight on Women in Science
The pair are also a united front while working to achieve their dreams in the harsh academic world of biology. The film does not pretend this environment is easy to navigate, but Reinhart notes they were deliberate in showing Olive and Anh “struggling to be seen in science.”
“They’re just scientists, and they’re excellent at it,” Reinhart says. So when Jeremy calls them geniuses at one point in the film, Reinhart notes, he isn’t saying it because they’re women. “They just are,” she says, adding that the film showcases Olive and Anh as brilliant, ambitious, capable of romantic love and of being incredible friends. “There isn’t just this one thing that they are,” Reinhart says. “They’re everything.”
Despite The Love Hypothesis being a romance, where the expectation is that the details of their work lives might get lost in the plot, the film’s team worked to reaffirm this aspect of the story through key production choices. Scanlon and producer Cantillon shot in real labs and lecture halls in Montreal. They also consulted scientists, including the technical officer of a university biology department. Marsh, who played a biologist in the series Unstable, says Stanford-area scientists coached the cast on lab technique, though quips that the academic community may be disappointed by their pipetting. Hazelwood was also always reachable to answer any questions from the creative team.
Reinhart felt that dedication to technical accuracy in the book and film during production. “I was walking to set, and a woman who was studying biology came up to me and said, ‘I’m so excited for this movie as a woman in science.’ I am someone who didn’t go to college and was terrible at science, so I have nothing but a deep admiration and appreciation for the women who can absolutely do something that I cannot do, especially in a male-dominated field. Ali, who is a scientist herself and is cool enough to write these books about these women who are in this field — it’s really special.”
In an industry where Marsh often looks up and sees crews and directors that are mostly men, on The Love Hypothesis she was able to see Scanlon directing, Cantillon producing and Reinhart leading the cast. “I felt very taken care of in a way that I haven’t on set in a long time,” she tells THR.
That dedication to increasing the visibility of women in STEM fields, as well as the reality that women can operate in any space at the helm, inspired Scanlon at one point to devise a version of the end credits with young kids doing experiments. That was until Cantillon reminded her the movie is rated R, meaning the younger viewers she was looking to empower likely wouldn’t be watching.
“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, probably can’t do that,'” Scanlon says, laughing. “[But] if one girl takes a science class because she’s like, ‘That’s cool!’ that would make me cry.”
Being Frank About the Real Dangers Women Can Face
While showing how talented and capable women are was a core element of the film, the Prime Video adaptation doesn’t shy from depicting the gender-based challenges — and dangers — women frequently face while working in STEM. That includes a pivotal scene from Hazelwood’s book, in which Tom (Arty Froushan), an associate professor at Harvard and Adam’s old graduate school friend, attempts to pressure Olive into sleeping with him.
After using his lab’s resources and her need for funding and equipment as leverage, he implies the only reason she’d get ahead is if she was romantically involved with Adam.
Cantillon says the scene’s power lies in its mundaneness. Even though Tom never touches Olive, the situation still feels “very innocuous” and “quite sinister,” Cantillon tells THR. “It’s something that women deal with a lot, not just in STEM but in life.” She also notes that if Tom were to ever be questioned about it, he’d likely say he brought Olive coffee. But “women know what the real story is,” the producer says.
“We wanted it to be hard to watch,” Reinhart says of the scene. “I’m sure a lot of women have been put in that position.” Scanlon adds Froushan had difficulty “wearing that character that day” but knew the scene showcased how these confrontations can happen and “they’re never addressed.”
The moment is devastating to Olive, who spirals into what Reinhart calls “peak imposter syndrome,” convinced that people think she earned her opportunity by sleeping with a man in charge.
“Many women are going to completely relate to that scene, whether it’s just shades of it or worse,” Scanlon says. “Then how you feel after is bleak. ‘I have no one. Everyone’s against me. I have no recourse.'”
The team had many discussions about the scene with the intimacy coordinator, given the scene’s subject matter is reflective of an assault, Reinhart explains. “He’s in her hotel room. He’s blocking the door. He’s coming from a place of power, and she feels powerless in that moment. It was really important for us to get it right,” Reinhart tells THR.
“We’re not in a place where women are believed. The only way through it is to keep showing it and keep talking about it. It happens all the time; it happens in Hollywood. Anyone who thinks whatever pendulum swung because of Harvey Weinstein — it’s swung back, just FYI,” Scanlon adds.
Once Olive reveals what happened to Anh, her friend’s protective nature rears its head, determined to turn around Olive’s despair.
“She’s really vulnerable,” Reinhart says of Olive’s mindset after Tom’s threats. “Anh is there to say, ‘It doesn’t matter what this man thinks. You’re brilliant,’ and Adam also tells her that she’s brilliant because she is, but she’s also a million other things.”
To encourage Olive, Anh says, “Screw those guys! It‘s not about them. It‘s about you and me and getting through this god-awful, soul-sucking, mind-crushing hellish grind for the past two years. To get to where we want to be. Where we deserve to be. So it really doesn‘t matter what Adam‘s going to do or what that ass-hat Dr. Benton is going to do. The only thing that matters: What‘s Olive Smith going to do?“
Reinhart recalls filming Olive opening up about what transpired with Tom to Marsh’s Anh. While filming, Reinhart recalls Marsh “crying on my coverage because we were just very connected with each other in that scene, really locking eyes with each other. It’s like when one girl turns to her friend and is saying, ‘What the fuck do I do?’ You have someone who may not have the perfectly amazing thing to say or the correct answer, but Anh reflects back to her, saying, ‘What’s Olive Smith going to do?’ It’s a nice perspective. It’s a nice reflection to Olive that she doesn’t need to look around for this validation anymore. She doesn’t need this imposter feeling. She is exactly where she belongs; she does deserve to be there.”
Marsh shares similar sentiments: “Your best friend’s job is to be able to translate that into an ‘OK, now what’s the next step? Let’s take control of the situation.’ This is very true to her character. She’s just like, ‘Let me handle this.’ You need to rely on your best friend for this.”
Cantillon adds that Anh’s support “gives [Olive] the chutzpah that she needed” to see past the trauma and go after what she wants.
“It was important to not shy away from the harsh truth of existing as a woman and what that means,” Reinhart says. “But having that scene with Anh and Olive, where her heart is on the mend once she gets to talk to her friend. … Having that moment where she’s [had]reflected back from her best friend that she does have so much value and so much to give is a full-circle moment.”
Olive and Anh’s Friendship Shapes the Film’s Ending
Anh’s proactiveness ultimately inspires Olive to take matters into her own hands.
Olive seeks out securing another grant to help fund her research to find non-invasive, affordable early detection methods for pancreatic cancer. She tells professor Dr. Aslan (Jeananne Goossen) that though she got a grant through Dr. Benton, the environment wouldn‘t be healthy for her so she turned it down. The professor tells Olive it was “very brave“ of her to do and knows the challenges that come with being a women in the field.
Meanwhile, after being told by Tom that Olive will be offered a grant from him, Adam decides to push her away, thinking he‘d just be a distraction for her when she relocates to Harvard.
In the book, Olive confronts Tom and Adam at a dinner, where she plays an audio recording of Tom’s threats for Adam to hear. Adam later reports Tom to the faculty, resulting in Tom being fired. However, in the film, it is Anh who informs Adam about what happened between Olive and Tom.
After Adam confronts Tom and warns him to stay away from Olive, the confrontation is recorded by students and shared on social media, allowing Olive to witness the moment herself. She later confronts Adam, expressing that she would have told him about Tom’s actions if he hadn’t been avoiding her. This leads to the two to reconcile and share a heartfelt reunion.
The filmmakers tell THR the change was a choice to give the climax back to Anh and Olive. Cantillon says she loves Hazelwood’s book, but overhearing someone else’s confrontation “works like gangbusters in the book” and is not satisfying on screen, so the team had to find a way to dramatize it.
“I think fans will understand why we did that — to drive home the narrative of Anh,” Marsh says of her character’s takedown of Tom. “I think it was very inspiring, honestly, to do that scene and be reminded of how much power we have not just stereotypically as women but how much power friendships have to be able to take someone else’s problem and make it your own. I know women who do that every day for each other, and I think that the script is no different, and it’s just another example. This is like a heightened level of that. It’s just an example of what we do on a daily basis for each other.”
For Cantillon, “It’s a female-forward ending that I really love.”
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The Love Hypothesis is now streaming on Prime Video.