I Saw a Free Screening of 'Love Hurts' and Now You All Have to Hear About It

Spoilers: I didn't love it but there was popcorn.

One of the things I love about my “line of work” — which I’m starting to call it — is that occasionally, I get to go to a free movie and sometimes, blessedly, those movies have snacks.

Love Hurts, from Universal Pictures and 87thNorth Productions, offered movie-goers free medium-size popcorn and a bottled drink. I chose the Coke. In all my years going to press screenings, I am still trying to figure out which production company offers the best screening amenities, and whether the quality of the amenities corresponds to the quality of the movie. Good snacks can mean a consolation prize for a bad movie, but also could mean the production company has the dough to spend. A screening I once went to for Amazon gave us popcorn, a candy buffet (!) and two selections of Voss water bottles: flat or sparkling. So far, that was the best.

The worst, in terms of amenities, was Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery for Netflix which was at, like, 9 a.m. and didn’t even offer water.

For me, the snack offerings at Love Hurts may have been an apology, a Hey, we know this movie isn’t our best work. Have a snack.

Let me start by saying: Ke Huy Quan is excellent — I love him as an action hero and thought he played Marvin Gable flawlessly; the role was clearly written for him, which is funny when you find out he didn’t think the same when he first read the script.

As a romantic lead? Sure, absolutely, with the right screen-partner, with the right script. His laundry-and-taxes monologue to Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most romantic speeches in modern film, in my opinion. Everyone hopes to hear something so earnest, so loving, so genuine. It’s clearly been established the man can handle complex, emotional dialogue.

Second: Ariana DeBose was cute as Rose, but I thought her placement as the object of Marvin’s desires was forced and weird, honestly, especially with their awkward kiss at the end. They had no romantic chemistry. It was weird. It was weird! What else do you want me to say. You could almost feel the actors’ discomfort through the screen.

Third: Watching Sean Astin get murdered with a boba straw was jarring and insane. I couldn’t help but wonder: has Samwise positioned himself at this point in his career as Guy Who Gets Killed in the First Half Hour of a Movie and/or TV Show? The man just can’t stop getting killed before the end of the first act. Give him a chance to get to Mount Doom, I beg you.

Here’s what I liked about the movie: the action scenes are excellent – sharp and well-choreographed. I like when I watch an action sequence and it looks like a dance. Love Hurts had that. If the purpose of the movie was the action scenes, then yes — it was perfect. Dialogue and plot can come secondary. If the action scenes are the focus, they should get bigger and more ridiculous as the movie goes on.

All of this comes together when you learn, like I have, that Love Hurts is longtime stunt choreographer and coordinator Jonathan Eusebio’s directorial debut. In an interview with ScreenAnarchy, he talks about “designing action” to the “physical capabilities of [the] cast,” which I thought was interesting.

You develop their style, how they fight, on what their character is. A lot of it is finding what they look good doing. Then drills, designing moves. We try to make it look like they've been doing this for years and years and years. You only get a certain number of months, but I have to make it look like they've been doing it for over 20 years or so.

So, yes, in fact, dialogue and plot came second.

More things I liked: I liked that Marvin’s brother, played by Daniel Wu, was always ominously sucking down a boba tea. I liked the moments that made me laugh. There’s a moment where they murder a Property Brother that made me scream laughing. I liked the lighting and the use of color. I liked when it was obvious the director was paying homage to other films and genres, and I liked the inherent earnestness of a movie with the message: “Love hurts, and it’s still worth it.”

I didn’t like the excessive exposition. I thought the use of voice-over/inner monologue was unnecessary. It’s an example of a studio’s insistence that audiences are stupid, unable to understand nuance, basic context clues, and general plot structure. I like to call this the Philosopher’s Stone Effect. Too much exposition becomes restrictive for an audience, frankly — filmmakers, I implore you: stop explaining yourselves to us. Let the camera do the work. Let silence do its thing.

I liked the subplot with Marshawn Lynch. I loved Lio Tipton and her romance with the warrior poet (Mustafa Shakir) and his cool boot-knifes. “There’s a dead poet in your office” killed me. It doesn’t get better than that. Also, Rhys Darby was in it for like 10 minutes after being duct taped in the laundry room and then he disappears with absolutely no explanation. The moments that were funny were funny. What was heavy-handed was heavy-handed. What was rushed felt rushed. What seemed like a plot hole was 100% a plot hole. I don’t know — I wouldn’t necessarily pay to see Love Hurts in theaters, but I can see it as something to have on in the background while you and a Valentine get busy on the couch.

My major takeaway is to put Quan in more action movies. If Love Hurts is the vehicle to make that happen, then we can all thank Steven Spielberg on another win for movies. And thank you to Universal and 87thNorth Productions for the free popcorn.