Prime Video’s ‘The Love Hypothesis’ Movie Ending Compared To The Book

What Happens To Olive And Adam In The Movie?

In The Love Hypothesis, Olive tries to convince her best friend Anh Pham (Rachel Marsh) that she’s moved on from her crush on their friend Jeremy Langley (Nicholas Duvernay), who Anh is clearly interested in. Because Anh refuses to break girl code, Olive tries to reassure her that she’s truly over Jeremy by claiming that she recently started dating someone.

But when Anh almost catches Olive working in the lab on the night of her supposed date with this new, unheard-of person, Olive panics and kisses the first guy she finds: the unapproachable and intimidating professor Adam Carlsen.

Olive and Adam agree to fake-date, since they both have something to gain: Anh will date Jeremy if she believes Olive has a boyfriend, and Adam needs to convince his department to renew his grant. The department considers him a flight risk, and although he has no plans to leave Stanford, he needs the millions of dollars in funding to continue his research. If Adam has a serious girlfriend like Olive, who has a year left in her doctoral studies, they might be convinced that he has roots at the school.

They agree to the arrangement with an end date of October 29, the day after the department delivers its final decision on all grant reapplications.

Later in the film, Dr. Tom Benton (Arty Froushan), an associate professor at Harvard and a friend of Adam’s, asks Olive to present her abstract at a conference so he can make a decision about her application to work in his lab. Olive leads a discussion about her research topic — non-invasive, affordable detection tools for pancreatic cancer using blood biomarkers — a subject that’s personal to her since her mom died of pancreatic cancer when Olive was 15.

Afterward, Olive and Adam get dinner together and then return to their hotel room, where they have sex for the first time.

The next morning, Adam and Tom pass each other in the hotel, and Tom tells Adam that he’s going to offer Olive the grant, meaning she’d get full funding to work in his lab starting the following month. He implies that Olive and Adam need to break up so she can stay focused on her work and not be preoccupied with a boyfriend.

Tom then shows up at Olive’s hotel room and offers her the grant, but it takes a dark turn when he sexually harasses Olive, telling her that she has to have sex with him to have access to his lab. Tom tries to manipulate her, saying that his lab is her only option, and he threatens to replicate and steal her work.

Olive tries reaching Adam to tell him what happened, but he ignores her, attempting to keep his distance after Tom’s comments. After returning home, she storms into Adam’s office, where he claims that he didn’t respond because he’s been busy now that his grant has been renewed.

Adam says that their arrangement was a success and is over, and wishes her good luck in Boston. Olive tries to tell him about Tom, but stops herself. Instead, she confides in Anh, who encourages her to take matters into her own hands. So, Olive asks her advisor, Dr. Aslan (Jeananne Goossen), if she can use her lab to continue her research.

Do Olive And Adam End Up Together?

Of course they do — it is a young adult romance novel, after all.

After Anh tells Adam about Tom sexually harassing Olive at the conference, he barges into a classroom and confronts Tom. Adam threatens to harm Tom if he goes near Olive or even thinks about her, and warns that his career is in jeopardy.

Olive doesn’t witness this interaction, but she sees it on her phone via an Instagram livestream from a student in the classroom. Adam and Olive reunite in the hallway, where he apologizes for hurting her. He also reveals that he’s in love with her.

“At some point, it stopped being for show and it became real,” he says.

They agree to start over and date for real.

“I just have one question for you: May I kiss you, with your consent?” Adam asks, referencing their first kiss, when Olive asked for consent but hastily kissed him before he could answer.

Olive permits him, they kiss in the hallway and Olive says, “I love you too.”

The movie jumps ahead two years, showing two students discussing a class known for being one of the hardest in the program, to the point that only 10 students pass each year. One of the girls says she heard the professor kept them in the lab so long and wouldn’t let them have food or water until they completed their slides, and that one student passed out from dehydration.

Olive and Anh interrupt their gossiping, and one of the students accidentally calls Olive Dr. Smite, reminiscent of Adam having the nickname Dr. Evil because of his reputation.

Before leaving, Anh tells Olive, “Your mom would be really proud of you.”

Adam greets Olive and asks if it’s true that one of her students passed out from dehydration, revealing that she’s become a formidable and intimidating professor. She explains that the student passed out because of dehydration from partying the night before, but she likes the “ominous tone” it sets for her.

“Go mold the terrified young minds, Dr. Smite,” Adam tells Olive. “I’ll see you later.”

The movie ends with Olive, in a voiceover, saying, “Bonds form only when being together is more stable than being alone, and I’m living proof of that. I found my connections, my family — the chemistry of belonging.”

How Is The Movie Ending Different From The Book?

One of the biggest differences between the movie and the book comes during the confrontation with Tom.

In the novel, Olive crashes Adam’s Harvard interview dinner with Tom to play him a recording she accidentally took of Tom’s sexual harassment, ensuring Adam has all the information before he makes a decision about working with Tom in the future. Adam flips out and threatens to kill Tom in the name of “the woman I love.” He eventually stops when Olive tells him it’s not worth it, but promises to take care of the situation and protect her. Adam later tells Olive that Harvard is going to fire Tom and that additional disciplinary measures will be taken.

Olive ends up receiving four emails from cancer researchers interested in working with her, thanks to her advisor, Dr. Aslan, reaching out on her behalf.

The book also reveals that Adam was interested in Olive years before they started fake-dating. Although Olive and Adam began their fake relationship at the beginning of the fall semester, they had actually met the year before, when Olive interviewed for graduate school. They met in a lab bathroom, where Adam reassured Olive that her reasoning for wanting to go to grad school was good enough.

This also explains why Adam agreed to fake-date Olive: He remembered meeting her and had already developed feelings for her.

Near the end of the novel, Olive comes clean to Adam and admits that she lied about having feelings for someone else. She then tells him that she loves him in Dutch, the language he grew up speaking.

The epilogue takes place 10 months later, a year after Olive kissed Adam in the hallway.

Olive and Adam are now dating for real and enjoying each other’s company. Olive is also preparing to start working at a cancer lab at Berkeley in less than a week.

The book ends with the couple celebrating the anniversary of that moment in the hallway by recreating their first kiss in the same spot in the biology department.