From To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before to Every Year After, Prime Video has found plenty of success with romance adaptations. So it’s no surprise that Off Campus has followed suit. But staying in the Top 10 five months after its premiere is another story, and there are a few reasons why the series continues to draw viewers in. Starring Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli as Hannah Wells and Garrett Graham, respectively, the college romance arrived following Heated Rivalry‘s breakthrough success. Although the two share the same hockey premise, Off Campus stands out with its leading couple’s irresistible chemistry, an equally engaging ensemble cast, and its ability to balance lighthearted fun with more mature themes.
What Is ‘Off Campus’ About?
At the fictional Briar University, Hannah is a straight-A music major who can usually be found studying, working two part-time jobs, or singing in her room. When her scholarship funding is suddenly cut, she must find another source of financial support to afford tuition. Meanwhile, Garrett is the good-looking hockey captain of the Briar Hawks, but his academic performance doesn’t match his skills on the ice. Worse still, more failing grades could get him kicked off the hockey team.
Four love stories, four completely different ideas of what it means to
be somebody’s person. This is the one that matches how you actually fall, and what it would ask of
you.
You do not fall for strangers. You fall for the person you have
already been talking to for years, which is the slowest and by some distance the most
durable way anybody has found to do this.
- When Harry Met Sally made the case that the best romance is an argument you enjoy,
conducted over a decade, by two people refusing to admit what is happening. - You want to be known rather than swept away. Somebody who remembers your worst story is
doing better work than anybody arriving with flowers. - The film is unusually honest about timing. These two are wrong for each other repeatedly
until suddenly they are not, and neither of them engineered it. - You would still be talking about everything at eighty. That is the entire promise.
You want a partner, not an audience. Somebody who wants their own
life as badly as you want yours, and who would never ask you to be smaller to make the
relationship easier.
- This is the rare romance where both people have a real career and the film takes both of
them equally seriously. - You would rather be pushed than protected. The right person for you is also a bit of a
rival, and that never entirely goes away. - It understands the actual problem in ambitious relationships. Not whether you love each
other, but whose turn it is this year. - You would still be competing at forty. That is how you would know it was working.
The intensity was never the problem. The secrecy is. You are
drawn to a love that lives entirely in private, and to the particular ache of wanting
somebody you are not supposed to want.
- Heated Rivalry runs on the oldest engine in romance: two people on opposite sides,
meeting in secret, getting far more attached than either of them planned. - You keep your private life genuinely private, and something in you finds hidden things
more real than public ones. - The tension is not only between the two of them. It is between what they have and what
it would cost either one to say it out loud. - Years of this, and the whole story is really about whether either of them will finally
stop hiding.
You do not do this cautiously. When it happens for you it is
immediate and total and it rearranges everything, and you would not accept a smaller version
of it.
- Titanic gave us the biggest romance in film history and then made it last about five
days, which is precisely the point of it. - You measure love by intensity rather than duration. A few days of the real thing beats
decades of something merely comfortable. - The film is not only about the romance. It is about a woman who went on to live an
enormous life afterwards because of it. - You would still be telling this story at a hundred years old, and telling it exactly the
same way.
The only thing Hannah and Garrett have in common is their philosophy class. Impressed by her grades, Garrett asks her to tutor him, but Hannah initially refuses. Knowing she has a secret crush on her classmate and musician Justin Kohl (Josh Heuston), Garrett makes her an offer: if she helps him pass, he’ll help her get Justin’s attention through a fake-dating scheme. It sounds ridiculous, but with no other solution, Hannah eventually agrees — marking the beginning of an absurd yet beautiful relationship.
‘Off Campus’ Gives the ‘Enemies to Lovers’ Trope a More Wholesome Spin
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime Video
Image via Prime VideoIt’s easy for romances to lean into the enemies-to-lovers trope by sensationalizing all the wrong things. However, that’s not the case with Off Campus. Hannah and Garrett’s romance feels much healthier than some of the trope’s more problematic takes, like the ones seen in Gossip Girl. Their dislike for each other doesn’t stem from wanting to see the other fail, but simply from not knowing each other well enough. Rather than giving in to their initial assumptions, they gradually learn to put themselves in each other’s shoes, especially since they come from different worlds.
Besides the main couple, Off Campus also benefits from memorable scenes that have taken on a life of their own on social media. Hannah’s jaw-dropping singing, Allie Hayes (Mika Abdalla) lighting up the party in her J.Lo-inspired outfit, and a genuinely good soundtrack all give the show plenty of personality. Not to forget the more cheeky scenes like Garrett’s awkward but endearingly fun dance to The Kid LAROI’s “Girls,” Allie and Dean Di Laurentis (Stephen Kayn) hooking up inside the photo booth, and the “Don’t blush” training kiss between Hannah and Garret, which have stuck with fans. Plot may be important, but these are the kinds of moments that keep audiences talking and help a show stay memorable long after watching.
‘Off Campus’ Isn’t Afraid To Confront Heavy Issues
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Off Campus has more going for it than viral scenes. On the serious side of things, the show tackles sexual assault trauma, parental abuse, and male vulnerability without getting too preachy. Instead, these topics come up naturally as the college students figure out how to deal with them. Sex is a common part of college life. Still, for people who have experienced sexual assault, their idea of intimacy can look very different from common media portrayals — and Off Campus handles that with sensitivity. Off Campus shows how even “manly” hockey players need to care for one another without ridiculing them for going “soft.”
Hannah and Garrett might have been on center ice in Season 1, but a new couple is about to steal the show in Season 2. The best part is that their chemistry has long been brewing behind Hannah and Garrett’s backs. Adapting Kennedy’s third novel, The Score, Season 2 focuses on Allie and Dean’s already-complicated situationship, which will be tested when Allie’s new crush arrives at Brian U — who, surprise, surprise, is no stranger to the hockey team. With five Off Campus books in total, plenty more couples to adapt, and proven chart dominance, it’s all the more reason for the show to keep on going.
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