Two scientists, one fake relationship, and a set of theories about love that do not survive contact with the experiment. Claire Scanlon directs The Love Hypothesis, a 2026 campus comedy starring Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman.
What is The Love Hypothesis about?
Olive Smith is a biology PhD candidate who approaches romance the way she approaches lab work: with a hypothesis, a method and a careful eye on the variables. Adam Carlsen is a professor with a brilliant reputation and a reputation for being impossible, a man whose students fear his comments more than their exams. For reasons that make sense to both of them at the time, the two agree to pose as a couple. The arrangement is supposed to be controlled and temporary. Instead, it introduces exactly the kind of noise neither of them planned for, and the carefully calculated positions each holds on attraction, trust and ambition begin to come apart. The academic setting gives the familiar fake-dating premise a specific texture, where lab politics, departmental gossip and the pressure of a research career all push the pretend couple closer than the protocol allows.
About the cast
Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman take the lead roles, supported by Rachel Marsh, Jaboukie Young-White, Nicholas Duvernay, Arty Froushan, Jeananne Goossen and Aladeen Tawfeek. It is a cast weighted toward comic timing, which the premise demands. Reinhart plays Olive Smith and Bateman plays Adam Carlsen, with Rachel Marsh as Anh Pham and Jaboukie Young-White as Malcolm Browne.
Context & significance
Directed by Claire Scanlon, The Love Hypothesis sits comfortably in the modern romantic-comedy revival that has brought the genre back to screens after a quiet decade. Running one hundred and ten minutes, the film gives its central pair room to shift from mutual irritation to something harder to classify. The catalogue lists it under both comedy and horror, an unusual pairing for a story about graduate students, so viewers should expect the comedy to carry the film while leaving some room for surprise. The science-lab setting is part of a recent trend of romances set inside demanding professions, where the obstacle is less a rival suitor than a career that leaves no time for feelings. It is an American production, and it arrives on K-Time with a Persian dub as well as subtitles.
Watching The Love Hypothesis on Ktime
The Love Hypothesis is on K-Time in a Persian-dubbed version and with Persian subtitles over the English original. Log in to a K-Time account to start streaming; reading this page requires nothing. K-Time's Farsi-language interface is built for Persian speakers abroad who want their films and their menus in the same language.