‘Love at First Sight’ Is a Film Made With Heart

Love at First Sight is a must-see on Netflix. The sweet movie brings together Oliver (Ben Hardy) and Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) as they are waiting for their flight to London. Through a series of mishaps, Hadley and Oliver’s paths keep crossing and their connection grows in unexpecting ways in that typical romantic comedy way but in a perfect little film that makes you believe in love once again.

Directed by Vanessa Caswill and written by Katie Lovejoy, the movie is based on the novel by Jennifer E. Smith and is genuinely one of the most adorable movies you’ll watch. Just a sweet movie where Oliver’s family is a little too obsessed with Shakespeare and everything about it just oozes that sickening sweet love story feel that makes you want to fall in love sooner rather than later. In preparation for the film’s release, I spoke with Caswill and Smith about the movie and what makes this romantic comedy so different from the rest.

For Caswill, this movie was about its characters and less about making it overtly connected to romantic comedies of the past. “I think it’s about not trying to like anything else,” Caswell said. “There weren’t clear rom-com references that we took for this. We just sat with the material, really. The screenplay, which was amazing. But then also the book, I had the book with me everywhere I went. It’s got marks all the way through it and letting that inform everything. I think the other thing that was just so important to me personally was that there was a real balance between the kind of aspirational and the fun and the whimsy and it being kind of grounded and having like genuine kind of hearts. I think that that kind of little tug of war was the thing that needed to be wrestled the whole way through. And I suppose I feel like that’s perhaps what makes it feel fresh.”

For Smith, this was her story come to life so I asked what was some of her favorite moments to see come to life in the movie. “There were so many there,” she said. “I wrote it a long time ago, I’ve had a lot of years of hearing from readers and fans, which parts they loved the most. So, when I first sat down to read the script, I was so nervous about what would be in there and what Katie Lovejoy, the wonderful screenwriter would’ve included. And I was so happy to see that some of the bigger, most important moments were in there. To me, I have always loved, one of the best parts to me is the quiet moment they have outside the bathrooms on the plane in the middle of the night. That’s a moment in the book that I’ve always loved and I got chills when I first saw it in the film.”

You can see our chat here:

Love at First Sight is on Netflix now.

(featured image: Rob Baker Ashton/Netflix)