“The Hating Game” is a curious movie

In that movie, they flirted casually as Lucy offered to turn up the “you’re killing me” soundtrack in Austin’s bedroom. No chemistry was detectable between the two, then.

But, in this movie, the chemistry between the two combusts like a vampire gazing at the blazing sun.

The story starts will the two of them not being able to see eye to eye, unless they are staring daggers at each other.

Lucy plays, um, Lucy while Austin comes to you as Josh, both are assistants at a publishing house.

“The Hating Game” simmers with Lucy and Josh’s mutual dislike, both of them wishing they were each other’s permanent neckties. That way, they could be at each other’s throats all the time.

The two are assistants to co-CEOs of two very different publishing houses merged to form a company called B&G Publishing.

Lucy and Josh are two completely different people.

Sitting opposite to one another in the same room, they are a study in contrasts. Lucy is the free spirit, while Josh is like that bottle in which spirits are sealed and strictly sold below the counter.

When their showdowns are unbottled at work, however, it’s a cat and dog affair with pistols drawn at dawn.

You may ask how cats and dogs may hold pistols. Well, let’s “paws” that metaphor and get back to the story.

Through their running battles, the two develop a grudging fascination with one another.

Lucy knows the shades of blue in Josh’s weekly shirt rotation and Josh knows when Lucy has a wet dream featuring him, without his dry sense of humour of course.

By the middle of the movie, you already know where their antagonism is headed and, I will give you a hint, it dances between the sheets.

This movie is based on the Sally Thorne 2016 novel of the same title. Bottom of Form

Although the book is an interesting story with twists and turns which beef up its telling, the movie is a rom-com entirely free of character.

For instance, we do not really get to see from whence the dynamic between Josh and Lucy evolves, even as the movie attempts to give us some narrative Oomph by presenting Josh as having a strained relationship with his family.

This familial discord should’ve provided fertile ground for us to understand who he is by drawing upon the content of their family quarrel.

However, all we get is his father Anthony (Sean Cullen) labelling him a complete loser for completing his MBA instead of becoming a doctor like, er, Jose Chameleone.

The tension between father and son seems like a plot contrivance aimed at adding layers to a movie with very little variation beyond its two leads being a man and a woman.

As I indicated earlier, the movie is predicable.

We all know they fall in love as soon as they fall for each other, we also know their opposite personalities attract to lend some antagonistic chemistry to the screenplay.

Also, we all know that they will fall out of love towards the end only to make their ultimate coming together have a coming-of-age quality to it.

It is an enjoyable film. Especially if you like clever but meaningless dialogue as well as happy-ever-afters which arise out of you being happy that you won’t want to see this movie ever, after.