Review: Gimmicky Spanish rom-com ‘The Laws of Thermodynamics’ never heats up

For the student bored by physics, a professor suddenly theorizing about the ups and downs of romance might have the potential to turn around a stuffy lecture. But the opposite doesn’t hold the same power in Spanish writer-director (and onetime Alejandro Amenabar collaborator) Mateo Gil’s “The Laws of Thermodynamics.”

It attempts to spruce up a generic romantic comedy about physics geek Manel (Vito Sanz) and his hot/cold affair with model/actress Elena (Berta Vázquez), by viewing it repeatedly through the prism of laws-of-attraction science. The movie is presented as a documentary from Manel positing that the titular rules for all physical life explain our emotions and behavior, too. The gimmicky construct is complete with historical narration from academic talking heads and scenes manipulated to shift and bend time.

Early on there’s a little bit of charm to the metaphor, as in a nightclub dance floor scene in which Manel likens Elena’s effect on surrounding men to a solar system with rotating planets. But eventually Gil’s overly clever notion wears out its welcome, and the fact that Manel and Elena are wispily drawn characters with predictable arcs of collision, attraction, cooling and entropy becomes all too apparent, and therefore none too enjoyable. Though sleekly photogenic in its depiction of cosmopolitan Europeans in permanent romantic neurosis, “The Laws of Thermodynamics” is better in theory than fact.

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‘The Laws of Thermodynamics’

In Spanish and English with English subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Playing: Starts Aug. 31, streaming on Netflix