‘Love’ Review: Judd Apatow’s Netflix Series Cleverly Explores 21st-Century Courtship

Later episodes get bogged down in subplots that feel like busywork, but Apatow’s latest foray into the wilds of the human heart offers modest, charming misadventures

Love Netflix

Judd Apatow has made a career out of chronicling love — how to find it, how to keep it, how to make sense of it — and so by naming his latest show “Love,” he’s clearly not deviating too far from a formula that’s been successful for him in both television and movies. And on its surface, this Netflix series (created by Apatow along with “Girls” staff writer Lesley Arfin and series costar Paul Rust) follows a familiar template, showing how a nerdy, insecure guy and a too-beautiful-for-him gal end up falling for one another.

But it’s in the small details where “Love” gets its hooks into you: This 10-episode first season is sometimes a little ragged and uncertain, but that’s very much in keeping with its characters, whose anxious ambivalence about the L-word might short circuit their chances of recognizing the potentially healthy romantic partner right in front of them.

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