When people think of Christmas Movies, classics like “Elf”, “The Grinch”, and “Home Alone” always come up. These movies that are watched seemingly every year amongst many others, deemed to be irreplaceable Christmas movies. 

However, for some people, their Christmas watch list couldn’t be complete without a classic Hallmark Christmas love story. Movies that seem to follow the same plot, with new characters and settings, but always make it to the happy ending that they are known for.

This year’s new Christmas love story gone bad welcomes “Love Hard”, starring Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O Yang, now streaming on Netflix. A love story with bad twists and embarrassing moments, all while easily anticipating a heartwarming end. 

The movie follows the familiar trope: a city woman heading to a small town in search of love during the holiday season, aka about 90% of Hallmark movies, where Nina Dobrev as Natalie Bauer hits the online dating apps in search of love from her city job as a bad love columnist, before hitting the jackpot with Josh Lin, played by Yang.

In the spur of the moment classic love story move, influenced by a romcom esc bestie, she decides to book a flight and head on over to the other side of the country for the holidays. Plot twist; Natalie was being catfished, leading to a love story gone wrong. 

The movie then turns into two different Hallmark tropes, Natalie pretending to be Josh’s girlfriend for his family, and Natalie trying to win over the guy whose pictures were used to catfish her online. You know, the classic love movie tropes. 

Constructed with lots of corny, not quite as witty as they hoped for, moments, and lots and lots of cringe, combined with sad teaching moments. The movie makes for another basic Christmas love story with just enough pleasantness to be fine to watch. 

So, while all in all, a basic, unoriginal Christmas love story, the classic holiday comedy “Love Hard” holds true to form and provides at least a little  pleasant entertainment for you this holiday season.