Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Book of Love’ On Amazon, A Goofy Rom-Com Starring Sam Claflin As An Uptight Romance Writer

In Book of Love, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, an uptight English author (Sam Claflin) learns that his dry, frankly terrible romantic novel has become a huge hit in Mexico and travels there to embark on a book tour. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that this trip is not going to be what he expected at all, and the beautiful translator (Verónica Echegui) who turned his book into a buzzy bestseller may have made more than a few changes to his original text than he would have liked. 

BOOK OF LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Henry Copper (Sam Claflin) isn’t having great luck with his debut novel, “The Sensible Heart”. The book is about as bland as the title suggests, and it’s selling so poorly that a local bookshop puts out a “buy 1, take 3” promotional sign for it. Because of this failure, he’s a little more than surprised when he hears from his publisher Jen (Lucy Punch), who tells him his book has become a best-selling hit… in Mexico. She tells him he needs to head over there for a book tour and to get active on social media stat so that they can capitalize on whatever success this book gets. Henry heads to Mexico, where he meets his book’s translator, a single mother named Maria (Verónica Echegui). He’s a little more than stunned by the response his book has received there, but it all starts to make sense when he gets a glimpse of his book’s steamy new cover and realizes that Maria has rewritten his boring novel and added a tad more spice (to say the least). This new iteration of “The Sensible Heart” is such a sensation that women flock to his events, send him naked videos of themselves, and vow to name their children after him.

This development is a little less than thrilling for Henry, but he handles it relatively well, going from stop to stop with Maria, her son Diego (Ruy Gaytan), and her grandfather Max (Fernando Becerril) in an old VW bug. His newfound celebrity is confusing for him, and when Jen tells him that they plan to re-release the book in the UK with a new cover (and translated back into English from Maria’s translation), he realizes something has to change. Though initially hesitant to embrace his more passionate side, Henry begins to open his heart to Maria; the two soon pen a new book together, and sparks continue to fly as they help one another to see things in a new light. With Maria’s hot-headed ex still in the picture, however, and more than a few bumps in the road ahead, things might not be as easy as they’d hoped.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: 27 Dresses, The Proposal, How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days, and even a bit of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Performance Worth Watching: Sam Claflin embraces his inner Hugh Grant in Book of Love, perfectly playing the tightly-wound Brit who learns to loosen up with the help of a brutally honest woman unafraid to put him in his place. We’ve seen Claflin play heroes and romantic leads of sorts, but this role pushes him into new territory, allowing him to play a naive, judgmental man who slowly but surely comes out of his shell and becomes a better person in the process. Even when he’s a dick, he’s still kind of lovable, and his story feels believable in the midst of Book of Love‘s mostly silly developments. If this doesn’t lead to a streak of endearing romcoms where Claflin and his majestic hair have the chance to shine, I’ll be extremely disappointed.

Memorable Dialogue: There are a handful of endearing lines in Book of Love, but Echegui’s delivery of “a lot of men would rather be killed by a monkey than, you know, admit they were scared” stuck with me.

Sex and Skin: There’s a lot of discussion of steamy sex thanks to Maria’s rewrite, and a long-awaited explosive scene between our two leads down the line (though it’s pretty tastefully shot!).

Our Take: Book of Love feels like it was made in the early aughts, and that is some of the highest praise I can give a romcom. From its outlandish story to the lost-in-translation shenanigans and the fabulous chemistry between its two leads, there’s so much to love here. Enemies-to-lovers is a classic trope, and it’s executed in such a fun way here, combining Henry’s utter cluelessness and uptight demeanor with Maria’s delightfully sharp tongue and big heart. It’s not often we see a romcom that has genuine sexual tension these days, but there is electrifying chemistry between Claflin and Echegui, and it’s a big reason why Book of Love is so much fun to watch. We’ve been starved for a romcom so unabashedly itself, light-hearted and sexy and relatively low-stakes. The building tension, the almost-kisses, the satisfying character development… it’s such good stuff.

Despite it being a welcome presence on streaming, there’s admittedly a lot that’s silly about Book of Love; its premise barely works when examined closely, some of its characters are a little cartoonish (looking at you, Pedro), the depiction of the publishing world is a little less than realistic, and the drama with Maria’s ex feels like a bit of an afterthought. None of this is enough to stop it from being worth your while, however. What’s at the core of Book of Love – a compelling love story and a confrontation of the misogynistic stereotypes that declare steamy romance novels smut and stoic love stories the higher art – is genuinely refreshing and a delight to watch unfold.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Book of Love is delightful romcom fodder, exactly the kind of outlandish, entertaining fluff we could use more of these days.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.