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Anne Hathaway’s new rom-com, The Idea of You, takes a novel loosely based on Harry Styles and turns that into a movie. Yup, you read that right. It’s certainly not an easy sell, at least in my eyes, and we all know we’ve, unfortunately, seen something like this before (After, I’m looking at you). As someone who dislikes age gap relationships in movies and TV but loves Anne Hathaway, I was tentatively excited for The Idea of You.Â
Nicholas Galitzine, known for Red, White, & Royal Blue, stars as Hayes Campbell, the lead singer of a fictional boy band called August Moon. He meets Solène (Hathaway), a 40 year old mother of a high schooler, when she brings her daughter to Coachella, where August Moon is headlining. Solène accidentally finds her way into his trailer and everything kicks off from there. Shortly after, the two begin a whirlwind romance as Solène follows Hayes around the world on tour, while her daughter is (conveniently) away at summer camp.Â
If you let yourself go along for the ride, the first hour of The Idea of You is fun, romantic, and sexy. Anne Hathaway is a wonderful lead and I could watch her in anything. Hathaway and Galitzine have wonderful chemistry and are fully committed to selling this story. I genuinely believe rom-coms are coming back and they absolutely should be. However, this one may just be too hard to sell.Â
When they get past the honeymoon phase and Solène and Hayes have to actually consider what really being together would look like, it loses some of its magic. The last forty minutes have major pacing issues as the characters struggle to decide whether or not their relationship is manageable in their everyday lives. By the end, I couldn’t think of a way that The Idea of You could’ve made me believe that this relationship would or should last.Â
With all that said, ultimately, I don’t think The Idea of You is meant to be taken seriously. It’s a romantic comedy and it’s supposed to be fun. If you can lean into that while watching, you’ll have a good time. Plus, it presents interesting questions about the way society looks at men dating younger women versus women dating younger men. (And I’m still stuck on the fact that it called Anne Hathaway a cougar).
One of the main takeaways I got from Hathaway during press for this movie was the treatment of actresses in Hollywood as they reach their 30s and 40s. She observed that, “I received a lot of romantic scripts in my 20s, and then in my 30s, I was so focused on my family life and motherhood and trying to find whatever my path was going to be. I didn’t notice I hadn’t been sent a script in a long time.” Actors get to play romantic leads well into their 40s, whereas actresses often get boxed out of roles like that. While this movie may not have been perfect, Anne Hathaway has every right to take and be offered any kind of role she wants. The thought that she could ever be described as “too old” is crazy to begin with. Actresses do not have an expiration date when it comes to being able to lead romcoms and I hope, at the very least, that The Idea of You can start a trend for different ages of women being cast in romcoms.Â