#the statistical probability of love at first sight

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Love At First Sight (2023)

Okay, we’re going to talk about the new Netflix romance directed by Vanessa Caswill, Love At First Sight, because I’m seeing almost no chatter about it and that cannot stand. Full disclosure, I’ve never read the book on which this movie is based, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, so I’m reacting only to the film (which I’ve now seen 4.5 times in 2 days).

The Surface Reading

It’s a perfect, tight, adorable little RomCom that’s heavy on the Rom and light on the Com, with a wrenching dash of angst and the most hair-twirling chemistry between two leads that has graced our screens in years. Truly, if all you want is 90 minutes of two actors being saccharine precious cinnamon rolls, look no further!

There are simple takeaways here, like that chance can only take you so far, but in the end you have to choose to love. Or that change and loss are part of life and you can’t run from them. Or that London is a massive labyrinth of eccentric people that probably looks 400% cooler onscreen than it is in reality (I wouldn’t know, I’ve never visited, so this and the 90s Parent Trap are the extent of my knowledge about the city, sorry).

Anyway, I adored how straightforward the story was - that the narrator (played brilliantly by Jameela Jamil) tells you directly in the first two minutes that it’s a story about love, fate, and statistics. She then repeatedly describes every development as it is happening, the characters’ histories and internal monologues, and all the context you need to follow the thin but fast-paced plot. The writing, performances, and production design are all solid, allowing the audience to get lost in the romance as it unfolds.

BUT if you’re slightly unhinged like I am and you’re always looking for more layers in your media, HAVE NO FEAR! There is in fact more going on in this little movie than you might expect.

Color Theory

For starters, the use of red and green in the film is fascinating. Yes, I realize the action of the story takes place a few days before Christmas, so you might assume it was just a seasonal aesthetic choice, but if you look closer, you can see very carefully selected shades of red and green repeating throughout the film. The red is a cool, deep rose color, sometimes pink, while the green is cool and dark, like oxidized bronze rather than emerald. Further, while they appear over and over, these hues are rarely used in a purely decorative or festive way. Instead, they play a role in the separation and coming together of the couple. On a color wheel, red and green are complements, perfect opposites that are never adjacent but always joined in the middle.

The title card during Hadley’s introduction is literally a green stripe over a red stripe, then the hallways of the airport are green, and of course Hadley’s ever-important backpack is a rosy red. As the couple grow closer on their flight, the light turns pink. Once in London, a green van takes Oliver one way while a red taxi takes Hadley the other. At her father’s wedding, Hadley is dressed in red (“the color of a bruise” she calls it), contrasting beautifully against her green jacket. Upon realizing Oliver’s true purpose, she chases after him on an iconic red double-decker bus. Meanwhile at the living memorial, Oliver’s father is dressed in red while his mother wears a faded green, as if to say she is already beginning to fade away. The event is decorated with green drapery and streamers, and there are even stacks of red and green chairs in the stairwell where Oliver begs his mother to receive treatment.

Hadley gifts her red and green bouquet to Tessa, and when she is driven away, a green-clad narrator returns the red backpack to Oliver. Wandering London alone, Hadley exchanges her painful red heels for a pair of green trainers (“sneakers!” she insists), and tries to call her dad first in a red phone booth and then on a phone from a stranger sitting in a cluster of red chairs. Finally, Oliver chooses to pursue Hadley to the wedding reception which is lit in pink, and where they finally share the long-awaited kiss.

There are many more examples, but in general we see that green indicates separation and loss, while red symbolizes joining, intimacy, and (what else?) love! It lends the film a gorgeous, subtle aesthetic without being garishly festive, and shows the lovers’ emotional journey from lonely childhood to vulnerable, loving adulthood.

Death and Rebirth

Speaking of which, there’s plenty of rebirth imagery too! When Hadley and Oliver meet, they are both still children, struggling with the impending loss of parental security through divorce and death. Thus, when they board the plane, it is as if they enter an underworld or womb, separated from their families and remade as new adults. They emerge on the other side into a hallway (read: birth canal), as each must still confront their own dying childhood before they can join as full and equal partners. Hadley journeys to a bright, red-strewn celebration of life, while Oliver must enter a dark green commemoration of death, his fear driving him deeper to hide in another hallway. Here his mother comes to find him, begging him to emerge into life, but Ollie still can’t confront her death alone.

Thankfully, Hadley travels to this underworld to find him, bursting into the memorial like a bright red flower. Even the bruise metaphor works, acknowledging the pain they are both experiencing at the changes in their lives. But Oliver still refuses to face his fears, trying to take a shortcut around death to life with Hadley. Still, she knows he’s not ready (likely because she’s not yet, either), and gently pushes back. And so, Oliver returns to the underworld, and Hadley walks off alone until she descends barefoot through a soggy riverside tunnel (birth canal again!). Finally, she calls her father and admits she is “lost.” When he arrives, Hadley at last gathers the courage to ask why he ended their old life, and to tell him how much it hurt her. But as Oliver predicted, she forgives her dad and even begins to accept his new bride.

Back at the memorial, Oliver is reminded by Hadley’s red backpack - his unaddressed emotional baggage - to be honest about his pain. In at last openly mourning his mother and his own childhood, Ollie takes a step into adulthood, just enough for his family to nudge him that extra bit to go after Hadley. And so, the family delivers him to his bride, who has meanwhile learned to dance again, even through her heartbreak. With one last confession, the two consummate their love with a kiss, bathed in pink light before an open door.

Happily Ever After

There’s so much more, with the hand-holding, numbers, Shakespeare, Dickens, the music, and beyond, but the point is that this cute, charming little romance is actually very deliberately constructed. It follows timeless patterns and motifs which we instinctively understand through visual and auditory language. And the narration plays a huge role in this as well, not unlike the prologues and epilogues of the Bard’s plays in that they state the story’s lessons plainly: that we cannot always be prepared for unwelcome surprises, but that we can make the choice to love every day.

Anyway, Vanessa Caswill deserves all the flowers and if you haven’t seen her gorgeous adaptation of Little Women (with all due respect to the marvelous Greta Gerwig and Gillian Armstrong), please do yourself a favor and watch that after you finish this!

[slytherin-ass-blog]

my honest reaction on this adaptation was to almost burst into tears because are you telling me you changed part of Oliver's plot and turned it into the most beautiful story about loss but you mixed it with love with all its letters to create such a meaningful and comforting story line?? I seriously wanna kiss the director behind this masterpiece because I cannot find the words to describe how lovely, wonderful, and lots of beautiful adjectives more, was this film <3

[mrsniallhoran505]

[lifeisbetterinmydreams]

Jameela Jamil absolutely killed it as the narrator she was so iconic

[londongirl]

Love At First Sight

Teaser 🍿

[fangirlfreak08]

If I had a nickel for every film I’d watched that had a blonde British guy with a parent that’s dead or dying of cancer fall in love with an American child of divorce who was flying to London for a wedding I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it’s happened twice

[queenmeriadoc]

I feel like my reviews are very relavant, Letterboxd

[homemade-ghosts]

netflix adaptation of the statistical probability of love at first sight starring haley lu richardson ???? oh 16 year old me would be freaking out if she knew

[halogencat]

“It's not the changes that will break your heart; it's that tug of familiarity.”

― Jennifer E. Smith, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

[bethaven]

Today's been kind of a mess. So, it was evident that what I really needed was to show my parents Love at first sight. Gosh, I'll never be tired of that movie! It's late, I'm mentaly and physically spent, but my hope is back.

“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”

[illfoandillfie]

first look at Love At First Sight

[dailyreverie]

I read The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight about 11 years ago. I came across it when my parents were in the middle of getting divorced and I remember it feeling cathartic, I remember reading it over one of the weekends were we would go to my dad's and being so angry about it all... at him, at life, at being fucking 16 and going through that. But the book kind of told me: "Hey. This Shit happens, and it's going to be okay".

I saw the movie tonight, after funnily enough, my dad told me "I saw a movie you would like" and it happened to be this one. And as I was watching it I had this little voice in my head that said "...I told you it was going to be okay".

[degenerate-reader]

In the end, it’s not the changes that will break your heart; it’s that tug of familiarity.

After all, it’s one thing to run away when someone’s chasing you. It’s entirely another to be running all alone

[lifeisbetterinmydreams]

i’m so upset they changed the movie title from “the statistical probability of love at first sight” to just “love at first sight”

[londongirl]

Sunday delight ✨

Ben and Haley🙌🏻

And, no, there's no new info🤷🏻‍♀️

[lazyp0tat07]

in every multiverse of statistics i'm confident you're the significant one for me...