Two pairs of lovers play out a comedy of errors, in which Maggie and Sam, try several unethical and nasty tricks to break apart the envied union of their respective former partners, Anton and Linda including identity theft, assault, and destroying Anton's restaurant. Obsessive astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life, Linda, cheats on him and leaves him for a suave Frenchman named Anton. He therefore goes to New York to stalk her and sets up house in the abandoned building opposite Linda's, intent on winning her back and waiting until she decides to leave her current lover. What Sam does not count on is being joined several weeks later by Maggie, a photographer and motorcyclist, who is determined to get revenge on Anton, her ex-fiance. Mutually hostile at first, the two of them eventually join forces in an attempt to separate the couple and ruin Anton's life. However, complications ensue when Sam and Maggie start falling for each other.
The film, marking actor Griffin Dunne's directorial debut, was released on May 23, one week before the highly competitive Memorial Day weekend in the United States. The film opened at No. 2 at the North Americanbox office making US$11.4 million in its opening weekend, behind . The film only managed to take $34,673,095 gross at the box office, several million less than either Ryan or Broderick's averages.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 55% based on reviews from 33 critics. On Metacritic it has a score of 49% based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F. Chicago Sun-Timesfilm criticRoger Ebert panned it as immature, implausible and imbecilic, but still gave it two stars out of a possible four. He did not go as far as the Los Angeles Times'Kevin Thomas, who called it creepy and said: Time Out New York film critic Andrew Johnston wrote: "Some say that movies named after hit songs always suck. In its own unspectacular way, Addicted to Love proves them wrong. Griffin Dunne's directorial debut is no artistic triumph, certainly, but it is a reasonably entertaining big-screen sitcom." In 2020, David Sims, film critic for The Atlantic called it "underrated" and "a personal favorite".
