BOSSIP Movie Guide Reviews 'CODA' And 'Love Hard'

‘Tis the season for sweaters, warm drinks, and oh yeah, family films like ‘CODA’ and holiday rom-com’s Like ‘Love Hard’!

Source: Courtesy iOneDigital / iOne Digital

Thanksgiving has arrived which means lots of free time to bond with family and friends and what better way to avoid awkward conversations and confrontations than to sit down together and watch some good movies. We gathered up our gang of film fanatics, including BOSSIP Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden and comedians Stephon Bishop and Courtney Bledsoe to watch ‘CODA,’ which is currently streaming on Apple TV+ and ‘Love Hard,’ which is available on Netflix.

From writer/director Sian Heder, ‘CODA’ tells the story of a teenage girl named Ruby who is the only hearing member of a deaf family from Gloucester, Massachusetts. At 17, she works mornings before school to help her parents and brother keep their fishing business afloat. But in joining her high school’s choir club, Ruby finds herself drawn to both her duet partner and her latent passion for singing.

Sounds simple enough right? But life gets complicated quickly when Ruby is pulled in multiple directions and forced to choose between being there for the family who has always relied on her and following dreams of her own.

Our second selection, ‘Love Hard,’ follows a super single L.A. girl named Natalie Bauer (Nina Dobrev), who is a West Cost based dating columnist. When Natalie falls in love with a man named Josh Lin via a dating app,  she gets a holiday hankering to see him and travels to his East Coast hometown to surprise him for Christmas. However, she discovers that she has been catfished, and Josh is really a nerdy man (Jimmy O. Yang). Her crush, Tag Abbott (Darren Barnet), actually does live in the same town, and Josh offers to set them up if she pretends to be his girlfriend for the holidays. If it sounds like a trainwreck waiting to happen — then we described it correctly because we totally couldn’t look away from this crazy funny and cute rom-com.

What are you excited to watch with your family and friends this holiday weekend?

Stay tuned because we have a lot more Holiday flicks ahead for the ‘Bossip Movie Guide,’ including ‘King Richard,’ ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog,’ and ‘Operation Christmas Drop.’