The Hating Game: Did the audience love it or hate it?
The Hating Game, a romantic comedy written by Sally Thorne, was published on 09th August 2016, adapted in the form of a movie of the same name, ‘The Hating Game’ released on 10th December 2021, has been a trending topic among people since the announcement of the film last year. Directed by Peter Hutchings, a well-known writer and director for films like ‘Then Came You’ and ‘Can You Keep a Secret?’
‘The Hating Game’, distributed by Vertical Entertainment, stars Lucy Hale as the Lucinda’ Lucy’ Hutton and Austin Stowell play the role of Joshua Templeman. The latter also acts as the executive producer.
It tells the story of two office colleagues Joshua Templeman Lucinda and ‘Lucy’ Hutton, a.k.a. ‘Shortcake’ as Joshua likes to call her, who hates each other, and never leave a chance to get competitive and achieve more than each other in their fields.
They become acquainted when the rival publishing firms Gamin and Bexley get merged, but they are far from professional towards each other even in front of the employees of B&G.
They both are executive assistants to their company’s CEO’s; they sit across each other and keep track of each other’s work more than their own, in other terms, they tolerate the existence of each other for 8 hours a day.
Everyone at B&G knows that Lucy and Joshua drive each other crazy, and they get many warnings from HR.
The Later part of the movie revolves around them competing with each other regarding the position of managing director. As the story unfolds, their chemistry shows that they might have never hated each other from the beginning and how their feelings for each other make them realize the existence of each other in their lives.
The film has mixed reviews; some of the audience has liked the film saying the chemistry between Lucy and Austin made them fall in love with Lucy and Joshua. It’s a light and joyful watch for people who love stories like hate-love.
On the other hand, some viewers think it’s a stale, one-time watch movie that lacks the originality and the book’s actual content addressing that the twists in the film have directed the plot in a whole other direction.
All in all, the storyline is above average. Rotten tomatoes have given 75%, IMDB has concluded the rating at 6.6/10, and the audience has given 4.5 out of 5. This rating does excite one to watch the movie at least once. 
Lucinda ‘Lucy’ Hutton is a beautiful, competitive, focused woman who sometimes unintentionally let others take advantage of her kindness, and she grew up with her parents in Vermont. They work as farmers on a strawberry farm and has always been hooked to books, and that’s why she chose to work for the publishing company.
Joshua Templeman comes from a family of doctors, and he is quite a reserved, private person and complex in nature, and it is hard for Lucy to figure him out or what goes in his mind. He did medical to impress his indifferent dad.
The latter constantly criticizes his son’s life choices but decides to do an MBA after realizing that he cannot follow in on his family’s educational background.
Â
The movie does consist of elements of wittiness, drama, romance, of course!, but somewhere it lacks that patience that leads to the building of chemistry between Lucy and Joshua, the patience and slow burn that was shown in the book, it seems too hurried, despite that Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell managed to sizzle the screen with their partnership and made it possible for The Hating Game fans and the audience to feel that fuzzy and happy feelings that we get while watching an excellent happy-ending rom-com.
Other rom-com which can be enjoyed are 10 Things I Hate About You, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Clueless, The Princess Diaries, He’s Not That Into You, and many more. Sally Thorne’s fantastic writing can be witnessed in her other books, such as Second First Impressions and 99% Percent Mine.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma
