“Hard Love”, on Netflix, is one of the Christmas movies of the moment. But behind its pretty Christmas decorations and its smell of hot chocolate, it poses a real problem. We explain which one in Pop it, the pop culture decryption of the week aufeminin.
Hot chocolates, plaids and Netflix are currently living their heyday, the cold and the end of the year having come to the fore. Better: since November 1, 2021, and since Mariah Carey decreed it so, Christmas is already here. And who says Christmas, says romantic comedies! If for some, these films are a real ordeal to watch, others make them their guilty pleasure. The success of Hard love by Hernán Jiménez, currently on Netflix, is proof of this. Since it went online, this new film starring Nina Dobrev, Jimmy O. Yang and Darren Barnett has been among the top most watched content in France on the streaming platform.
We discover Nathalie, a frankly unlucky young woman in love, who decides to cross the United States to join Josh, a man she met on a dating app, and spend the end of year holidays with him. Except that when arriving safely, Nathalie realizes that she has been duped: Josh is not at all the man he claimed to be in the photos …
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Netflix’s “Hard Love” Catfishing Is Not Romantic
Told like this, the film Hard love on Netflix is reminiscent of those ultra-creepy stories that you find in the newspapers under the heading “miscellaneous”, in which women have been ripped off and become victims of predators. Indeed, poor Nathalie was catfished, that is to say deceived by a person who created a false identity on a social network. However, it is the love that emerges from the film Hard love because Josh explains to him that if he cheated on him, it is because he does not trust him. If he was ready for anything, it was so that the heroine would appreciate her for who he is, and not for his appearance.
It is, in fact, the moral that unfortunately wants to transmit to us Hard love on Netflix. The film makes us believe that a bad intention, however serious, can be excused if it was made out of love or a lack of self-confidence. Because, beware of spoilers, Nathalie and Josh do indeed end up together at the end of the film. Worse still, it’s Nathalie who apologizes, against a background of references to the film Love Actually, for not having seen “good intentions” by Josh. We only want one thing when we watch this frankly bitter-tasting romantic Christmas comedy: to tell Nathalie to run away from Josh because she deserves much better.