A Lot Like Love Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		1.5

A Lot Like Love Blu-ray Movie Review

Dude, where's my screenwriter?

Reviewed by Randy Miller III March 29, 2026

A failed attempt to sell the premise of When Harry Met Sally to a new generation, Nigel Cole's A Lot Like Love follows two directionless young adults at various points in their lives during a seven-year stretch. Though sometimes buoyed by the chemistry of leads Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet, the film's soggy screenplay does it absolutely no favors and routinely grinds interest to a halt during this mostly formless 107-minute rom-com. While I wouldn't go so far as to put it on a list of my all-time "Most Hated" like Roger Ebert did (it's #98), A Lot Like Love is unusually weak.

The film's first and most crucial mistake is, well, blowing its wad too early. A Lot Like Love opens with a meet-cute between Oliver Martin (Kutcher) and Emily Friehl (Peet, wearing a variety of bad wigs) at an airport where both are headed from LA to New York City for different reasons: he's hoping to capitalize on the recent dot-com craze and she's just broken up with a musician boyfriend and still looks the part. They make eye contact before boarding and that's enough for admission into the mile-high club, but "Ollie" makes the mistake of thinking their relationship will go any further than that. Somehow, it does: he takes a chance by giving her his family's home phone number, insisting that they reconnect in the future, and that's exactly what happens after several years of cold, hard reality.

It would be pointless to list the handful of times that Ollie and Emily reunite during this episodic comedy, which is far too boring to generate much in the way of genuine interest due to the two-dimensional nature of its characters. Kutcher has almost no big-screen presence here and, while Peet at least goes more all-in with her portrayal of the spontaneous Emily, it's a terribly underwritten part for the reliably good actress. Simply put, these two young adults are not the star-crossed lovers that the story insists they are, as A Lot Like Love continually forces Ollie and Emily together in a highly predictable, repetitive way that doesn't feel either realistic or emotionally satisfying. Worse yet, the story gets sloppier as it goes along and ends on a supremely dumb fake-out that insults its audience's intelligence even more than usual within this genre's limited boundaries. While not a total loss due to a handful of genuinely sweet moments and a few small laughs, it's well below average in both its first impression and any potential replay value.

Originally set for Blu-ray all the way back in 2013, Disney abruptly cancelled A Lot Like Love but it finally arrives 13 years later as a MOD pressed disc from Sony that doesn't advance on the 21 year-old DVD as much as anticipated. In one way, it's actually a downgrade because Sony's recent QC issues (see also: Cobra Kai and especially Groove) have once again reared their ugly head here. It couldn't have happened to a more mediocre film.

A Lot Like Love Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Given that A Lot Like Love was first announced back 2013 before an abrupt cancellation, I'll have to assume that the master for Sony's Blu-ray isn't any newer than that. That's certainly what it looks like, at least according to these direct-from-disc screenshots: good, and certainly clean, but not great. Colors lean towards DVD-era Earth tones with occasional exceptions, yet these warmer hues give it something of a slightly dated appearance overall and this also extends to fine details as well as textures. Neither one stands out particularly strongly with a general appearance that doesn't have an abundance of depth... but not being intimately familiar with the film's cinematography, that could be part of its visual design. In any case, it even feels lightly processed on occasion, such as at least two scenes filmed in Emily's apartment courtyard with its almost neon-green foliage and blown-out whites, both of which stand in sharp contrast with adjacent scenes as if someone else stood behind the camera that day.

Disc encoding is at least solid with no obvious signs of issues like banding, macro blocking, or posterization, as the film gets more than enough room to breathe on this dual-layered disc that barely includes two hours of total content... and the extras are in SD. While I can't grade it any higher that a 3/5, it may not be be hugely disappointing to fans looking to retire their DVDs; after all, they'll still see a pretty noticeable uptick in overall quality and stability. But with more than 20 years of elapsed time since that last release, I was expecting more than what we got here.

A Lot Like Love Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

With a lower bar to clear, the DTS-HD 5.1 Master audio track feels more successful as a clean, lossless upgrade of the DVD's Dolby 5.1 mix. As expected; this is a mostly front-loaded affair that leaves room for rear-channel atmospherics in certain locations as well as for music support; this applies to the original score by Alex Wurman as well as its poppy soundtrack, which includes songs by Aqualung, Travis, Groove Armada, The Cure, and Eagle-Eye Cheery, as well as a one-two punch of overplayed 90s hits in "Semi-Charmed Life" and "Walkin' On the Sun", which are so ubiquitous that I don't even have to name the artists. It's a fine effort that gets the job done; nothing more, nothing less.

Optional subtitles (including English SDH) are also included, which is ironic given the problem below.

QC ALERT: In what's starting to become a fun tradition for Sony catalog titles, this Blu-ray edition of A Lot Like Love has a problem: it omits any and all burned-in subtitles for Ollie's deaf brother Graham (Tyrone Giordano), whose sign language conversations are now entirely untranslated. While most of their feelings are understood by context, this is an obvious error because these subtitles were present on all known earlier home video editions as well as the streaming version. As always, if an official disc replacement program is announced, I'll post more information here... but for now, you can voice any complaints to Sony directly at consumer@SPHECustomerSupport.sony.com.

A Lot Like Love Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed cover art and extras carried over from the DVD.

• Audio Commentary - This legacy DVD-era commentary features director Nigel Cole with producers Armyan Bernstein and Kevin Messick; it's as surface-level and pleasantly chatty as you might expect given the film itself, with many stretches spent narrating the scenes or explaining character backstories and motivations that should already be pretty obvious to most viewers. If you weren't too keen on the film, this won't change your mind.

• Blooper Reel (3:39) - A few legitimately funny moments here.

• Deleted Scenes (7:28 total) - About a half-dozen short scenes, some with bridging clips.

• Music Video (4:09) - "Brighter Than Sunshine" by Aqualung, likewise presented in SD.

A Lot Like Love Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nigel Cole's A Lot Like Love is a lackluster romantic comedy whose problems mostly begin and end with its awful screenplay. There are merits hidden here, but not enough to wade through everything that it does wrong. While I'm sure it has its nostalgic fans, even they'll be mostly disappointed with Sony's belated Blu-ray: the visuals aren't very impressive, the recycled extras don't add much, and there's a QC issue with the subtitles that renders one character completely voiceless (see "Audio" above). With almost nothing working in its favor, A Lot Like Love is certainly not a recommended title... but if the subtitle issue is corrected, it might be worth an upgrade for fans.