The Hating Game

This is a film adaptation of the romantic comedy book by the same title The Hating Game. The general plot is one about two executive assistants (Lucy and Josh) for the two co-directors of the merged organization of two fundamentally different publishing companies who now work together sharing the same small office...and who hate each other.

This film takes place right before Thanksgiving and going into the holiday season, allowing for Christmas decor without being in your face about the holidays. It also starts with Lucy, played by the actress Lucy Hale, giving us a little run down on why she hates Josh and some of the games they play with each other. A new promotional position is announced that both Lucy and Josh want...and it is game on.

Great banter...wonderful hate to love romance that has some pride and prejudice vibes to it. Wonderful chemistry between our two main characters.

This film made me realize how much I love the hate to love trope!

Sweet, funny, biting dialogue...I highly recommend and will watch it again!

The only scene I did wholeheartedly enjoy was the paintball scene, but that was because it was a little hard to keep track of who was who and what was happening...but it was brief and lead to some very sweet scenes between Lucy, Josh and Patrick (Josh's brother).

I loved Josh's nickname of shortcake for Lucy...and the green paint...just melt my heart. Loved it!

Lucy Hale is wonderful in this. Quirky, adorable, funny, the usual. However, the male lead is SO BORING. Like they could have casted a brick wall and it would have had the same outcome.

Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman "hate" each other. They work together and they are the exact opposite of the other. But they do have something in common: they are both very ambitious, so things take a turn when they are competing for the same job.

I think that as an adaptation is very accurate. Quite faithful to the book. At least the most important scenes are there.

Lucy is the real star of this movie. Nothing against Austin but she truly shines. They have amazing chemistry.

There is not much to say about this. There barely is a plot here. It's not perfect but it is enjoyable as any other romcom these days. There are two characters with sexual tension teasing each other and pushing each other's buttons and that's truly where the fun lies. Add great chemistry between the leads and you got yourself an enjoyable hour and a half.

Was it really that hard to add 20/30 minutes to the movie and actually get their dynamic right?

First off, why do they keep making movies this short when there's actual material to add to the storyline?

Second, they really did not get the relationship right. Part of why the book is so loved is because of how their relationship progress. They switched small moments between them that are key part of the relationship development for useless comedic bits.

I won't say anything bad about the performances, the dislike is not geared towards them.

I think that when you do a movie based on such a well known book, you should try to identify the core scenes and feelings that those scenes transmit, and sadly they didn't do it in this case. Probably most of the hate the movie will get is from the book readers, maybe the rest of the people won't mind it.

Anyhow, to round this up, this movie was not my favourite obviously.

Two workers hate each other but are also attracted to one another.

This is more Rom than it is Com and I liked the leads.

The feud didn't go on for as long as I was expecting - I really thought they would squeeze every last drop of animosity out of the pair before moving on but they didn't.

The pair get to a point where they see things are getting out of hand and talk it through like adults.

This made the film feel more realistic and the characters more believable.

This was refreshing but did vent some of the fun from the movie.

The plot is still pretty silly and as always the hunk has some crippling experience he needs the love of the right woman to fix for him - but that is the nature of the beast.

The two had chemistry and were fun characters. There is a lot to like here.

The editing was a bit snappy and the camera operators had itchy feet.

The worst thing about this was the supporting characters. It looks like they are going to be setup and fleshed out but you only get a nibble of character before they are pushed off screen, only to be dragged back on to do something stupid for comedic purposes.

It really felt like they were crashing a party they weren't invited to and that annoyed me.

Good solid fun - but not a classic.