“Love Hard” was released on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Being the first of many holiday movies to come to Netflix this season, movie watchers have been beyond excited.

This movie follows Natalie, played by Nina Dobrev, who complains about her terrible love life. After multiple dates via a dating app consisting of people located within a five mile radius of her, Natalie’s friend adjusts the radius on the app to include the whole country. This causes Natalie to match with Josh who lives in New York, played by Jimmy O. Yang, who she starts communicating with through the app.

With the holidays around the corner, “Love Hard” gets you in the perfect festive mood. If you are looking for a holiday movie, I would strongly recommend watching this Netflix film.

Natalie is a writer who writes for her advice column on dating. She has to write about the horrible dates that she goes on every week, for her boss Lee. Despite being fired four times, Natalie still showed up to work.

After talking to Josh over the phone, he mentions that they should be together for Christmas, so Natalie decides to surprise Josh, but she is in for a surprise after finally meeting him.

Stuck in New York after meeting her partner who is not the same as he portrays himself to be on the internet. They make a deal that Josh would help Natalie to go out with Tag, played by Darren Barnet, in return for Natalie to be his girlfriend for Christmas.

This works out in favor for both of them but things don’t go the way they wanted them to, so Natalie is forced to search for activities to fulfill her story and encounters crazy twists and schemes along the way.

Finding love can be a hard thing especially in the world that we live in today. You might not always fall in love with the person that you meet through online dating, but there is a possibility that you can find your one true love.

This movie is a fiction based on real life events, as people often get catfished while online dating.

One of the best scenes is when Natalie goes down to a local New York bar after a chaotic night of seeing Josh in person. After taking a few shots, unaware that they contained her allergy, kiwi, Natalie attempts to seduce a familiar guy with seductive dances. With a puffy, red face, Natalie is dragged to the vet by Josh where she recovers.

Another really good scene is when Josh’s parents throw them a surprise engagement party and Natalie’s boss shows up after finding out through Facebook, and she gives a really amazing speech.

If there is to be another movie it would be great to see the outcome of Josh and Natalie together spending time with family and to see Josh’s little nephew on his first Christmas.

Overall, “Love Hard” is a very well thought out and unexpected holiday movie with lots of twists and turns to get you hooked. Every typical holiday movie has a “happy” ending, but the outcome of this movie was very unique and full of surprises. “Love Hard” is a must if Christmas movies are your thing.