The Love Hypothesis

Biology student Olive Smith nervously deals with expired contact lenses that temporarily blur her vision before her interview for Stanford University's PhD program. An unseen researcher interrupts her, irked that she is using his lab's bathroom. He briefly encourages her, then leaves without introducing himself.

Olive later arrives at Stanford as a PhD student. Initially reserved and anxious, she befriends classmates Anh and Jeremy, and lives with her best friend Malcolm. Olive initially had a crush on Jeremy, but instead realizes he is interested in Anh. One night in the lab, she overhears Anh rejecting Jeremy's advances and realizes Anh is doing so to protect her feelings. To free Anh to date him, Olive claims she is seeing someone. When Anh nearly catches her working in the lab during her supposed date, Olive kisses the first person she sees: Dr. Adam Carlsen, a postdoctoral fellow nicknamed "Dr. Evil" for his blunt, hostile demeanor. He threatens her with a Title IX complaint for the nonconsensual kiss, but instead proposes a deal. They will fake a relationship with each other. This keeps Olive's lie believable so Anh can find love, and it helps Adam get his grant renewed by appearing more committed to Stanford.

After an initial café encounter, Olive and Adam attend a department picnic together. Pressured by her friends, Olive applies sunscreen to a shirtless Adam. Despite their awkwardness, department head Dr. Fastuca approvingly notes them together.

At a faculty party at Dr. Fastuca's, Olive meets Adam's former colleague Dr. Tom Benton. Tom asks her to share her pancreatic cancer research with the group, but she is grilled on its legitimacy and deflects questions about her personal connection to it. Walking home, Adam consoles her, and Olive realizes he was the researcher who encouraged her before her Stanford interview. She reveals that her mother's death from pancreatic cancer inspired her work. At the end of the night, they kiss in front of Olive's friends.

Tom later invites Olive to present at the SBD Conference, a major biology symposium in Boston, with the aim of securing a grant to work in his Harvard lab. Adam helps her prepare and begins to show a softer side around her and her friends. Olive's friends assume she will share a room with him at the conference, forcing them to do so, albeit in separate beds.

Olive's presentation is successful but scheduled at the same time as Adam's, and she only afterward learns he was the event's keynote speaker. In a bathroom, she overhears people saying she is underqualified and only got her spot because of her relationship with Adam, damaging her confidence. At dinner, Adam reveals that his undergraduate research supervisor was sadistically abusive while Adam studied with Tom, contributing to his aloofness. Back in the hotel room, Olive kisses Adam and admits she has real feelings for him, and they sleep together.

The next morning, Tom tells Adam he will offer Olive a grant and suggests Adam cut ties with her so she can focus on her research. Tom then surprises Olive in her hotel room and propositions her for sex in exchange for the grant, warning that telling anyone will ruin her reputation and that he will plagiarize her work using her samples if she reports him. Stunned, Olive returns to Stanford, but Adam is distant and ignores her calls.

In Adam's office, before Olive can tell him about Tom, he announces he has secured his funding, so their fake relationship is over. She leaves heartbroken, but Anh consoles her. After class, Olive presents her project to Dr. Aslan, an accomplished Stanford doctor and colleague of Adam's whom Olive admires as a successful woman in STEM.

By chance, Anh tells Adam what Tom did. Infuriated, Adam confronts Tom by interrupting his class and vows to end his career. Olive watches a live stream of the confrontation and seeks Adam out, berating him for rejecting her. He apologizes and confesses he also has real feelings for her. They reconcile and agree to begin their relationship in earnest.

Two years later, Olive and Anh both have PhDs and teach at Stanford alongside Adam, who is still happily together with Olive.