The Chaos of Connection: How Hooking Up Tried to Redefine Modern Love
Coming into late 2018, we expected to see Hooking Up as a new rom-com that would attempt to challenge the genre. Having Nico Raineau as the director, paired with the rom-com veteran Brittany Snow, and one of the most sought-after comic actors in American television Sam Richardson, expectations were that we would see an emotionally charged and raw examination of intimacy in a digitally dominated world. Snow has appeared in the American television series Pitch Perfect and Richardson in the television series Veep. There was anticipation of a film in the vein of Crazy, Stupid, Love, except with a darker tone.
What we were given was unexpected. Instead of just teasing the taboo themes, Raineau and the filmmakers fully embraced and tackled them. Hooking Up has received mixed to divided reviews, and with good reason: it is an unconventional cross-country film that, in part, addresses a painful redemption story, but also layers itself as a romantic failure.
Anticipating the First Date
As for the marketing for Hooking Up, it was touted as “a raunchy sex comedy with a big heart,” and the pre-release promotional material focused on the humor. Humor was also a key theme in the promotional material, with Brittany Snow towards the more reckless and self-assured end, contrasted with Sam Richardson’s more self-effacing and emotionally hurt persona. For these viewers, the casting was Snow and Richardson was Richardson who had made a name as a warm and funny comedian with a solid screen presence, and Richardson.
This was a film, and audience, with a strong desire for sensitivity in the humor in the and instrumental in shifting the discourse around intimacy and consent in the post-#MeToo era. Early festival pre-released marketing focused on comedy, and audience sentiment suggested a discomfort in the marketing material, leading to in the marketing.
When the Road Trip Begins
The core of Hooking Up is about two emotionally shattered individuals attempting to re-write their personal scripts. Brittany Snow portrays Darla Beane, a sex columnist who has taken her writing a step further and turned it into a bizarre form of “performance therapy,” basing her “performances” on her wildly chaotic sex life. Having her reckless behavior result in her losing her job, and being shamed in public, leaves Darla’s confidence shaky and fragile, and her façade cracks.
Bailey (Sam Richardson) is a mild-mannered post-breakup man who has recently been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Things take a strange turn when Darla is joined by Bailey while she retraces her sexual encounters to “heal” and he is her chosen companion, to help confront his fears surrounding masculinity, closeness and cancer.
What begins as a dubious and crass experiment, leads the two into an emotional detox. During the trip Darla focuses on revisiting her past lovers while Bailey works on the unresolved issues surrounding his pain. The journey becomes one of messy rediscovery that doesn’t quite conform to the neat little boxes of romantic ideals.
Some moments are unforgettable: how Darla’s cynical humor started to soften as she let her guard down; how Bailey’s quiet pain grew into gentle courage. The outrageous and the tender characterize their conversations, leading both to the realization that authentic connection has far less to do with physical presence and far more to do with transparency and truth.
The Emotional Collision Beneath the Comedy
To Brittany Snow, this was much more than another comedic character. She was candid in the press about her own mental health challenges and was grappling with depression and anxiety, which she described in detail. This honesty bled into her character, Darla, who uses humor and sexuality as a shield in front of her biggest insecurities.
There’s a bittersweet undertone to almost every performance, but there’s something particularly striking about the balance Snow strikes in her performance. She exudes a kind of emotional fatigue that feels authentic. It sounds almost as though she invested parts of her own healing into her performance.
In contrast to Richardson, Sam Bailey embodies the part without an inflated sense of self. Even though Hollywood typically represents masculinity as bold and assertive, Bailey’s understated awkwardness ironically makes him a strong character. Richardson, who has frequently been pigeonholed into roles where he is cast as the comic relief, was able to display his dramatic talents for the first time here, and he executes it with unusual tenderness. Bailey’s character is a polite traumatized individual, which makes Richardson’s off-screen claims about the pain that comedy conceals perfectly fitting.
Their chemistry is neither passionate nor fierce; it is awkward, hesitant, and entirely believable. And perhaps that is the point — Hooking Up is about love that lacks glamor. It is about love that is a slow, stumbly thing that grows from shared pain.
When Reality is Rawer Than the Fiction
The film has emotional aspirations, but still struggles to find and maintain a single, cohesive tone. Some reviewers mentioned that the film still struggles to find and maintain a cohesive tone, and that it was still working to balance the heartbreak and humor. At one point, the audience is expected to find a motel scene comically absurd. At another point, they are expected to be receptive to a heartbreaking scene that deals with body image and trauma. The abrupt switches should be polished and refined.
The changes in attitude reflect the complexities of actual relationships. The cinematography achieves this ambience well with the gloomy road motels, the far from picturesque highways, and the snazzy bars. Everything feels unrefined, like the filmmakers wanted the visuals to replicate the emotional roughness.
The unrefined visuals correlate well with the emotional roughness. The emotional change of the characters is accompanied by an appropriate soundtrack mainly featuring pop and indie songs. There is repetition of the dialogue and the visuals, serving as a reminder of how people tend to replay the same mistakes over and over.
Off-Screen Realities and Hidden Struggles
Hooking Up was difficult to shoot as well. The planned offstage the planned whirlwind filming shoot meant characters would have to switch from high energy comedic performances.
Brittany Snow, an executive producer on the film, wanted to capture the reality of relationships and demanded that the sex scenes feel awkward. Richardson, leading a romance for the first time, openly said that he was nervous to perform material that was so reliant on emotional transparency. “It was the first time I wasn’t hiding behind the joke,” he said.
Speculative reports regarding creative differences during the film’s editing also emerged. Some insiders argued that the film’s original cut was darker and more focused on Darla’s psychological struggles, while the final version was made lighter and intended to fit the “rom-com” label. This might explain some of the film’s unevenness, as it seems to be in a tug-of-war between what it really wanted to express and what the market expected it to be.
What the Film Left Us With
When Hooking Up was released in 2020, just before the pandemic fully set in, it was the subject of mixed sentiments. The film’s early viewers described the film as tonally confused, while some viewers found beauty in the film’s imperfections. For those willing to pay attention, the film was not about sex; it was about self-worth.
Although the film was not a box-office hit, it attracted a quiet cult following, particularly on social media. This was especially true for those that related to Darla and Bailey, people who used humor and distraction to cope with fear.
And perhaps that’s where Hooking Up really succeeded — not as a polished romantic comedy, but as a candid depiction of how two troubled people teach each other how to mend.
Like a confused road trip without a GPS, the film goes off the rails multiple times. It is the unexpectedness, the bewilderment, and the clumsy artistry that shines in those moments. It serves as a reminder that the true and authentic forms of love often bloom when the maps say we’re lost.
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