Review

Nothing About Love
Subtitle: Because nothing says “I’m completely over you” like directing Shakespeare with your ex-boyfriend.

Nothing About Love — which Hallmark apparently decided was actually much more about love than the title suggested — takes the classic Hallmark formula and drops it into the wonderfully dramatic world of theater. There are Shakespeare plays, artistic disagreements, old romantic feelings, and enough unresolved tension between two people to power an entire regional theater company.

Bea is a successful television director who returns to the theater community where she got her start to direct a summer Shakespeare festival. Seems simple enough. Show up, direct some Shakespeare, avoid unnecessary emotional complications, and leave with your dignity intact.

Unfortunately, her former college boyfriend is playing the male lead.

Because of course he is.

And not just any former boyfriend. Benny is also her former acting partner and longtime artistic rival, meaning these two already have years of romantic history, professional competition, and unresolved arguments conveniently packaged together. Hallmark movies have apparently decided that the best way to process a breakup is to put the two people in charge of a play and make them spend every day arguing about Shakespeare.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Well, except everything.

Bea and Benny immediately fall into the Hallmark version of “We are absolutely not still attracted to each other.” This involves bickering, lingering glances, professional disagreements, reminiscing about the past, and approximately seventeen moments where one of them looks at the other as though they've just discovered the existence of cheekbones.

Their central conflict is particularly appropriate because the movie is inspired by Much Ado About Nothing. The Shakespeare connection gives the filmmakers an excellent excuse for all the dramatic misunderstandings and verbal sparring. Basically, Shakespeare wrote the original Hallmark script centuries ago; Hallmark just added sweaters and a production schedule.

The theater setting also creates a refreshing change from the usual Hallmark workplace ecosystem. Instead of running a bakery, saving a Christmas tree farm, renovating an inn, or inheriting a suspiciously profitable small-town business, our heroine is directing Shakespeare.

Which means the professional stakes are somehow both extremely important and completely ridiculous.

There are artistic disagreements. Casting concerns. Questions about how to modernize Shakespeare. Festival politics. And, naturally, the possibility that two people who broke up years ago might still have feelings for each other.

You know, just your standard theater production.

The supporting cast adds another layer of Hallmark chaos, because apparently one emotionally complicated relationship wasn't enough. There are actors, festival organizers, board members, and various theater people all contributing to the increasingly obvious conclusion that Bea and Benny should probably just talk to each other.

But talking honestly would eliminate roughly 70 percent of the movie.

So instead, they argue.

Then they collaborate.

Then they remember why they liked each other.

Then they argue again.

Then someone says something meaningful about Shakespeare.

Then there is another meaningful look.

Then, presumably, the universe files the appropriate romantic paperwork.

What makes Nothing About Love particularly fun is that it understands the appeal of the classic enemies-to-lovers formula while giving it a theatrical makeover. These aren't strangers who meet at a pumpkin festival and immediately develop feelings. They're people with an actual shared history, which makes their chemistry feel less like “we met yesterday and somehow know everything about each other” and more like “we have been irritating each other for years and apparently that's our love language.”

And while this isn't one of the Hallmark holiday movies, it still contains the essential Hallmark ingredients: attractive people, a charming community, career complications, unresolved romantic history, and a problem that could probably be solved if everyone simply communicated for five consecutive minutes.

Instead, we get Shakespeare.

Honestly, that's probably more entertaining.

Nothing About Love is a playful, theater-infused Hallmark romance that proves you don't need Christmas decorations, a bakery, or a royal family to create romantic chaos. Sometimes all you need is an ex-boyfriend, a Shakespeare festival, and the professional obligation to spend several weeks pretending you don't still have feelings for each other.

Because apparently nothing says “I have moved on” quite like casting your ex as your romantic lead.