Love, Guaranteed starts off with all the right components for its genre: a meet-cute over coffee? Check. A grand romantic gesture? Check. A love interest who is rich but also volunteers? Check, check. But this high-concept rom-com struggles in elevating the genre to align with modern dating practises, while still holding onto old-school rom-com clichés.
Whereas the romance literary genre is pumping out novels examining love found over dating apps (The Right Swipe, Virtually Yours, Love at First Like, among others), film and television has been a little slower in getting with the times.
Love, Guaranteed is primed to fill this gap. Nick (Damon Wayans Jr) hires plucky young lawyer Susan (Rachael Leigh Cook) to sue the dating app—the eponymous Love, Guaranteed—for fraud. You see, although Nick has gone on 986 dates through the app, he still hasn’t found ‘the one’.
However, Love, Guaranteed misses a glaring opportunity, failing to touch on the central dichotomy at play: once you’ve guaranteed love, the app is no longer needed—and that’s bad for business.
The main issue is the film’s difficulty breaking out of traditional clichés whilst identifying with the rom-com genre. In 2020, audiences want more from their films than just a carbon copy of its predecessors. Years of re-treading old ground combined with audience desire to see complicated characters onscreen means we’re ready for a fresh take. Nick chasing after Susan on her way to work, which would have been considered endearing in the 90s, now seems like blatant stalker behaviour. Nick even highlights the tropes at play when he remarks at one point that Susan ‘is not like other girls’.
And this isn’t the only trope explored. Love, Guaranteed gives us the dim-witted sidekicks who act as Susan’s cheerleaders; a fridge full of Chinese takeaway as an apparent demonstration of how sad and lonely Susan is; her being too busy with work for dating; the balance between maintaining professionalism and falling for someone … it goes on. At one point, Susan literally waltzes into work humming, hitting audiences over the head with how smitten she is. The result is that these tropes, instead of being trademarks of their genre, end up producing boring clichés.
The film also completely glazes over the treatment of female characters as inanimate conquests for Nick to tick off a list, instead reducing them to their unique Friends knock-off title, like ‘the one who talked about cats all night’. In 2020, audiences expect more from the treatment of women in film.
The rom-com genre has never been one for realism, however it’s difficult to believe the pro-bono altruism from Susan when she appears in each scene wearing a new fashionable coat and is the sole lawyer at her own firm, yet we’re supposed to believe she drives around in a quirky beat-up Volkswagen with a cassette stuck in the player out of necessity.
Some onscreen graphics would have been nice to integrate Susan’s dating ‘research’ into the viewing experience, but the most disappointing thing about the film is the missed opportunity. As a high-concept Netflix original and thus free from the perils of a widespread cinema release, there was room here to push the boundaries of the genre, to provide a fresh perspective and transform outdated tropes into the 2020s. Daredevil and Ghost Rider alum Mark Steven Johnson may be a surprising choice as director, until you recall 2010s passable When in Rome, but even he only elevates this film to slightly above Hallmark movie standard.
Damon Wayans Jr makes clichéd and stilted dialogue feel natural and effortless, out-acting everyone around him, and Rachael Leigh Cook is enough of a Jane Doe to act as an audience surrogate. It’s also great to see a mixed-race couple as the leads in this film, and they have enough chemistry to make you root for them, despite an inordinate amount of inappropriate attorney–client interaction.
An unexpected positive about Love, Guaranteed is the cinematography. Each shot is beautifully constructed and feels fresh. A particularly striking shot of a Ferris wheel reflected in a pool of water feels like one from a better film. It’s definitely not the best rom-com set in Seattle, however there are enough beautiful establishing shots showcasing the city for it to feel like an active player in the film.
However, with the destination already clearly lined out for us, the journey is significantly undramatic. Overall, it’s a fun concept. Love, Guaranteed gives you no more and no less than exactly what you expect.
For those a fan of early 2000 rom-coms How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or The Wedding Planner, you might like this. But if you’re after a modernised fresh take on the genre that fits into today’s societal values, you should probably skip this one.
Love, Guaranteed starts off with all the right components for its genre: a meet-cute over coffee? Check. A grand romantic gesture? Check. A love interest who is rich but also volunteers? Check, check. But this high-concept rom-com struggles in elevating the genre to align with modern dating practises, while still holding onto old-school rom-com clichés.
Whereas the romance literary genre is pumping out novels examining love found over dating apps (The Right Swipe, Virtually Yours, Love at First Like, among others), film and television has been a little slower in getting with the times.
Love, Guaranteed is primed to fill this gap. Nick (Damon Wayans Jr) hires plucky young lawyer Susan (Rachael Leigh Cook) to sue the dating app—the eponymous Love, Guaranteed—for fraud. You see, although Nick has gone on 986 dates through the app, he still hasn’t found ‘the one’.
However, Love, Guaranteed misses a glaring opportunity, failing to touch on the central dichotomy at play: once you’ve guaranteed love, the app is no longer needed—and that’s bad for business.
The main issue is the film’s difficulty breaking out of traditional clichés whilst identifying with the rom-com genre. In 2020, audiences want more from their films than just a carbon copy of its predecessors. Years of re-treading old ground combined with audience desire to see complicated characters onscreen means we’re ready for a fresh take. Nick chasing after Susan on her way to work, which would have been considered endearing in the 90s, now seems like blatant stalker behaviour. Nick even highlights the tropes at play when he remarks at one point that Susan ‘is not like other girls’.
And this isn’t the only trope explored. Love, Guaranteed gives us the dim-witted sidekicks who act as Susan’s cheerleaders; a fridge full of Chinese takeaway as an apparent demonstration of how sad and lonely Susan is; her being too busy with work for dating; the balance between maintaining professionalism and falling for someone … it goes on. At one point, Susan literally waltzes into work humming, hitting audiences over the head with how smitten she is. The result is that these tropes, instead of being trademarks of their genre, end up producing boring clichés.
The film also completely glazes over the treatment of female characters as inanimate conquests for Nick to tick off a list, instead reducing them to their unique Friends knock-off title, like ‘the one who talked about cats all night’. In 2020, audiences expect more from the treatment of women in film.
The rom-com genre has never been one for realism, however it’s difficult to believe the pro-bono altruism from Susan when she appears in each scene wearing a new fashionable coat and is the sole lawyer at her own firm, yet we’re supposed to believe she drives around in a quirky beat-up Volkswagen with a cassette stuck in the player out of necessity.
Some onscreen graphics would have been nice to integrate Susan’s dating ‘research’ into the viewing experience, but the most disappointing thing about the film is the missed opportunity. As a high-concept Netflix original and thus free from the perils of a widespread cinema release, there was room here to push the boundaries of the genre, to provide a fresh perspective and transform outdated tropes into the 2020s. Daredevil and Ghost Rider alum Mark Steven Johnson may be a surprising choice as director, until you recall 2010s passable When in Rome, but even he only elevates this film to slightly above Hallmark movie standard.
Damon Wayans Jr makes clichéd and stilted dialogue feel natural and effortless, out-acting everyone around him, and Rachael Leigh Cook is enough of a Jane Doe to act as an audience surrogate. It’s also great to see a mixed-race couple as the leads in this film, and they have enough chemistry to make you root for them, despite an inordinate amount of inappropriate attorney–client interaction.
An unexpected positive about Love, Guaranteed is the cinematography. Each shot is beautifully constructed and feels fresh. A particularly striking shot of a Ferris wheel reflected in a pool of water feels like one from a better film. It’s definitely not the best rom-com set in Seattle, however there are enough beautiful establishing shots showcasing the city for it to feel like an active player in the film.
However, with the destination already clearly lined out for us, the journey is significantly undramatic. Overall, it’s a fun concept. Love, Guaranteed gives you no more and no less than exactly what you expect.
For those a fan of early 2000 rom-coms How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or The Wedding Planner, you might like this. But if you’re after a modernised fresh take on the genre that fits into today’s societal values, you should probably skip this one.
Senaai Chapple 
Leave a Reply