Love, Guaranteed review: Old-fashioned rom-com for modern technological world

Love, Guaranteed delivers a modern-day rom-com with many traditional elements

The majority of rom-coms will have the same formula. Two people meet, they don’t instantly like each other, they realize they love each other, something splits them up, they get back together. It’s pretty much the same formula Love, Guaranteed follows.

The difference with this romantic comedy on Netflix is that it involves modern-day tech. Think of it like Swiped but in the future. A person has made a dating app, guarantees love, and it doesn’t work out. You just know that’s where the Noah Centineo YA rom-com would have gone in the future, right?

While it follows the old-fashioned formula, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. Okay, there’s nothing groundbreaking about it, but do we actually come to rom-coms for something groundbreaking? I think we all went into Love, Guaranteed pretty much expecting what we go, didn’t we?

Predictable isn’t a bad thing

Sometimes, we want stories that excite us. We need something that is going to make us think and guess. If you want that, turn over to Amazon Prime Video for The Boys right now or check out something like The Witcher on Netflix.

There are times that we don’t want to think. We want to throw on a movie and just be entertained. We want to watch a couple fall in love, break up, and get back together again. There’s something calming about these types of movies. In a pandemic world, calming is necessary.

So, Love, Guaranteed most definitely has its place. You pretty much know how the story is going to go. The big question really is whether this guy who has been on 1,000 dates through the dating app is going to win in court. Can the dating app lawyers prove that he just wasn’t in it for dating and that he wanted a big cash payout?

I’ll leave you to watch the movie to find out. This movie does put the focus on not judging a book by its cover—except for Heather Graham’s heavily cliched character.

It’s not an attack on dating sites

When many check out this movie first, there’s that fear that it’s just going to be some sort of attack on dating sites. After all, we’ve heard the cliched comments. You’ll only find one night stands or people aren’t who they say they are.

That’s certainly the case in some instances. In fact, Love, Guaranteed touches on that. But it does also include good things about the world of online dating.

Rachael Leigh Cook’s character, Susan, lives next door to her sister and tells her pretty much everything about the case. It probably breaks client privilege, but we’ll overlook that. In fact, Damon Wayans Jr.’s character, Nick, completely overlooks that.

Anyway, the sister found love through a dating site. She’s all for them. The writers of Love, Guaranteed also found love through the dating sites. I personally know people who met their spouses on dating sites. So, they can definitely be a good thing, and the movie never really denies that. What it points out is that a love guarantee is not feasible.

The focus itself is on the characters. They’re not one-dimensional. They have heart and they don’t seem completely out of reach for those of us watching these movies. We can be just like them. Just probably not the over-enthusiastic employees at the law firm or Heather Graham’s character.

In the end, it’s going to depend on what you want from a movie. If you love a good old-fashioned rom-com, Love, Guaranteed is a movie you’re guaranteed to love…well, enjoy, because there are no guarantees when it comes to love of any kind.

Love, Guaranteed is available to stream on Netflix now.