Love Hurts Review: Tepid, Meandering Rom-Com
Theatrical Movie Review - Romance/Action/Comedy
There has been no comeback that has brought me more joy than that of Ke Huy Quan over the past five years. So it gives me no pleasure to write that Love Hurts by Jonathan Eusebio is a tepid romantic comedy with no real romance or comedy.
Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is a mild-mannered real estate agent. He loves putting families into homes and is well-loved by his clients and co-workers alike. But when his assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton) hands him an envelope with “Love Hurts” written in calligraphy, Marvin realizes that his past is returning to haunt him. He makes his way through a series of villains, only to discover that his brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) is looking for him after realizing that Marvin didn’t dispatch Rose (Ariana DeBose). Now, to try to preserve the life he has built and save the woman he loves again, he needs to access some of who he was in the past.
The first twenty minutes of Love Hurts seemed promising. The premise was somewhat boilerplate, but Quan is a charming actor, and the first two fight sequences were well executed and shot. Eusebio is a long-time stunt coordinator and performer, so that was to be expected. But as soon as DeBose’s Rose entered the story, the movie ground to a halt.
The second act contains a lot of backstory and talking, but somehow, none of it builds the characters meaningfully. We’re told that Marvin spared Rose because he loved her, but we are never given any indication of how that love developed. It somehow manages to be expository without explaining anything.
Despite this 83-minute movie having three writers, it feels like they sketched out a few decent ideas and then decided to start filming without actually finishing the script. Love Hurts is based around Valentine’s Day, so several different romantic relationships are explored, but none are fleshed out enough to make us care. Even that might have been okay if the primary couple had been good, but even that was thin and uninteresting.
It’s hard to talk much about the performances. The many supporting characters are all serviceable in their roles, to greater and lesser degrees. Sean Astin has a brief turn as Marvin’s boss and is one of the only fully developed roles. DeBose feels flat in her performance for nearly all of the movie. Quan is captivating when he is allowed to be, but there is so little to work with that it doesn’t add up to anything memorable.
The most frustrating movies are the ones that have the potential to be good. Plenty of ideas in this are almost interesting, but nearly all of them fall short of the mark. Instead, it skips from one idea to the next, never allowing time for anything to develop into something worth caring about. I just hope Ke Huy Quan has built enough goodwill on his return to the silver screen that Love Hurts won’t hurt our love for him.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on February 9, 2025.