Love at First Sight premiered Friday on Netflix. The feel-good romance movie isn’t about love, but instead fate and statistics, or at least that’s what the narrator said.
Based on the novel The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith, the film was directed by Vanessa Caswill and stars Haley Lu Richardson as Hadley Sullivan and Ben Hardy as Oliver Jones, with Jameela Jamil playing an omniscient character.
The movie follows 20-year-old Sullivan and 22-year-old Jones, two green-eyed, mayonnaise-hating adults who are on their way to London for two separate events. Sullivan, a Charles Dickens fan, is going to her dad’s wedding with her new stepmom, and Jones, a math geek, is going to his mom’s Shakespeare-themed memorial, that is, plot twist, being thrown by his mom.
Before and throughout the plane trip, they get to know one another and share details about each other’s lives, such as family, school, and their views on love.
Sullivan thinks love is about having someone hold your hand throughout life and spending money on a wedding is pointless. Jones, however, likes weddings and views it as a promise people make to each other.
During their nearly seven-hour flight, they fall in love. After they land, they get separated in customs, but before he leaves, Jones gives Sullivan his number, but her phone dies before she could save it. Ironically, “Passing Ships” by Morgan Harper-Jones starts playing.
The characters’ chemistry was super fun and adorable to watch. I smiled a little too hard every time something even remotely cute or corny happened.
I gasped and paused the movie when their flight was taking off, and Sullivan, who was nervous, grabbed Jones’ hand. After talking her through her nerves, Sullivan admitted to Jones that he was being charming. Cute.
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The movie showcases the innocence of falling in love. Newer movies often emphasize sexual tension between characters but the romantic attraction in the movie was palpable and obvious.
Though there were two attempted kissing scenes, it wasn’t until the end that they finally kissed, showing the audience that you can have a good romance without any sexual scenes.
Another interesting part I enjoyed is how the entire film takes place in one day. In a lot of movies with similar concepts of love at first sight, they drag it out and have fewer scenes between the two main characters.
Instead of having many frustrating close calls, the main characters reunited halfway through the movie.
I also thought the movie was pretty funny. The characters’ witty comments, like when Sullivan said, “No meeting family till the fifth date,” and Jones replied with, “Says the girl who slept with me on the first,” actually made me laugh out loud.
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Even the random statistics made me smile and made the movie a little more interesting. You never knew when Jamil’s character would hit you with a statistic about how Dec. 20 is the worst day to be at the airport or about how many people get engaged on Dec. 21.
But my favorite part of the movie was the very end.
Jamil gave a breakdown, in numbers, of the rest of Sullivan and Jones’ life together. It makes me very happy to know they ended up being married for 58 years, will have a daughter and will kiss 12,872 times throughout their lives.
The cherry on the cake for me though was when Sullivan asked Jones what he was studying. His response was “the statistical probability of love at first sight.”
