BookTok lovers, get ready for The Love Hypothesis to take over your feeds. The Prime Video movie hit the streamer on Sept. 23, starring Lili Reinhart as the one and only Olive Smith and Tom Bateman as Dr. Adam Carlsen. The film, based on Ali Hazelwood’s 2021 novel of the same name, already has fans gagged. (In case you were wondering, yes, Chapter 16 was as good as book fans were hoping it’d be.) But as it goes for any book-to-screen adaptation, not every book scene made it into the final product, and there were some major differences between The Love Hypothesis book and movie that fans were quick to point out.
Thankfully, Reinhart herself was aware of how these adaptations can go, and made it a point to preserve many of the moments fans of the novel loved so much. Ahead of the movie’s release, she told The Hindustan Times, “You can only do so much when it’s a book-to-movie adaptation. You can’t squeeze everything in there. But I really tried to protect as much as possible, and as many of those fan-favorite moments as possible.” So, which book moments made the cut, and which were left out entirely? Here are some of the biggest differences between the book and the new movie. Spoiler alert: Spoilers for The Love Hypothesis book and movie follow.
- Holden Isn’t In The Movie
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In The Love Hypothesis novel, Holden Rodrigues is a professor at Stanford and a close friend of Adam’s. In the book, the two characters are very close, and by the end, Holden and Olive’s BFF Malcolm also end up dating. Unfortunately, Holden was cut entirely from the movie, so Adam didn’t have that best friend figure throughout the film. (And no boyfriend for Malcolm, either. Sorry, Malcolm!)
- Adam’s Yearning For Olive Wasn’t Mentioned In The Movie
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The Love Hypothesis film began with Olive prepping for her Ph.D. interview at Stanford in the bathroom, where she unknowingly meets Adam for the first time. (She was fixing her contacts, so she never got a good look at him.) When the pair properly meets years later, they begin their fake dating trope, just like they do in the book. But, in the book, it’s clear that Adam was in love with Olive from that first meeting and had been yearning for her for years. In the movie, that’s never mentioned.
- The Confrontation With Tom Is Different In The Book
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In both the book and the film, Tom confronts Olive after her talk at a Boston conference, sexually harassing her and threatening her career when she rejects him. In the film, this scene happens in her hotel room, and Adam finds out much later, when they’re back at Stanford. He confronts Tom during a lecture class, where students begin filming the confrontation. It’s not clear whether Tom is ever fired.
In the book, though, the moment between Tom and Olive happens in the conference room right after her talk, and Olive is recording the whole thing. (She was recording her talk, and the recording kept running during the whole ordeal.) This comes into play later, when Anh and Malcolm hear the recording. Olive then plays it for Adam when she crashes an interview dinner he’s at with Tom and his Harvard colleagues. Tom ultimately gets fired.
- Malcolm Knows About The Fake Dating In The Book
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In The Love Hypothesis movie, it’s not clear at first that any of Olive’s friends know she and Adam are fake dating. At the end, Olive opens up to Anh, telling her it all wasn’t real, and Anh casually mentions that she’s always known. In the book, this isn’t the case — Malcolm actually ends up finding out it’s fake, and he becomes a confidante for Olive. Anh doesn’t ever know it’s fake, and it’s more of a revelation at the end when she finds out the truth.
- The Time Jump At The End Is Different
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At the end of the novel, the time jump is 10 months later, and focuses largely on it being the anniversary of Olive and Adam’s first fake kiss in the lab. In the scene, they go to the lab to recreate the kiss. Olive is also planning to leave Stanford and start her research at UC Berkeley in the near future.
At the end of the movie, though, the time jump is bigger. It’s two years later, and Olive has graduated, stayed at Stanford, and become a professor just like Adam. The students are also a little terrified of her, just like they are with Adam, and Adam hilariously calls her Dr. Smite.
Even though there are major differences between the book and the movie, The Love Hypothesis is good either way you want to enjoy it. I’ll personally be rereading and rewatching Chapter 16 for the foreseeable future.