Love Hard is a fluffy little Christmas romantic comedy that somehow marginally exceeded my expectations. Not by a lot, but enough for me not to sneer in superior cynicism at my Netflix screen. And that’s a win for the flick.

The film is about a woman played by Nina Dobrev who is unlucky in love and writes a regular column about her train wreck of a dating life. She suddenly finds a handsome funny guy on a dating app and secretly flies across the country to see him for Christmas. Only to find out he’s lied about what he looks like – he’s not a devilishly handsome guy, but a rather round-faced Asian dude (played by Jimmy O. Yang).

Now, I’m not super able to tell what makes a guy cute or whatever, but I imagine Jimmy O. Yang could be considered… cute? Or at least not a hideously malformed Quasimodo. Obviously he’s not devilishly handsome guy, but the way Dobrev’s character reacts to him was shallow, insensitive, and quite terrible. I mean, I get that she’s mad he lied about his looks… but the way the film depicts it, it’s like he showed up on screen looking like Harvey Two-Face.

Probably asking too much from a rom-com to be more emotionally intelligent… and the film makes it clear that she has to grow up and realize what a great guy he is. OK, fair. Lessons to be learned. Room for a character arc.

So just going with this it, I wound up lightly enjoying the flick. It’s not as funny as it could be and sometimes scenes end abruptly with a weird or awkward punchline, but generally speaking it’s fine. Amusing enough. It has an ongoing (if perhaps too familiar) debate about what the perfect Christmas movie is: Die Hard or Love Actually. Not the most original, but it does lead to a few chuckles (and gives the movie its name).

And it’s nice to see Yang play a romantic lead instead of the usually creepy or off-putting dudes I’ve seen him play.

I guess the real acid test is whether or not it warmed any corner of my cold, cold heart. And, yeah, this flick did give me warm fuzzies, despite my mental protestations. It’s a decently silly little rom-com. Almost despite itself.

Score: 79