By Mark Fields
Romantic Drama Showcases Stars’ Chemistry
You could drive a Mac truck through some of the holes in this straight-to-streaming romantic drama, but at the heart of The Idea of You is a very emotional, steamy, and credible love story between an older woman and a younger man. This is thanks to a palpable chemistry between the movie’s stars, Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) and Nicholas Galitzine (Purple Hearts). The viewer has no trouble believing in the sexual attraction they share.
Hathaway plays Solène, a 40-year-old, recently divorced gallery owner in a posh suburb of Los Angeles. Chaperoning her daughter and friends’ visit to the Coachella Festival, Solène has a chance encounter with an attractive younger man, Hayes, who she later discovers to be one of the members of a popular boy band playing the festival. Sparks fly quickly and soon the two are entangled in a passionate, albeit implausible, affair. The rest of the movie details the myriad challenges the two must face to keep their chemistry alive.
The ostensible central conflict of The Idea of You is the 16-year age difference between the characters, but the real burden on their relationship is the disparity in the two characters’ personal circumstances: suburban mom and pop star.
This is a film that depends heavily on the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief, because the circumstances start at ludicrous and gradually get ratcheted up to ridiculous. The screenplay, in fact, is one of the greatest weaknesses of The Idea of You; there are just too silly premises, poorly drawn secondary characters, and mistimed plot devices to be sustained. The writers also heap the obstacles on these two, which creates a narrative that lurches from complication to resolution and back to struggle without ever finding a satisfactory rhythm.
Wisely, director Michael Showalter (The Big Sick) – who also co-wrote the screenplay with Robinne Lee and Jennifer Westfeldt – keeps the focus tightly on the mismatched lovers, especially Hathaway, whom Showalter captures in all her dewy winsomeness. Hathaway has always divided critical opinion, with some finding her screen work cloying or unconvincing. But I find her to be an appealing presence on screen. Galitzine holds his own with her, and brings some measure of depth to an underwritten, even cliched character.
The Idea of You is one of those movies, common in the romance genre, that falls apart the moment that you start to think about it. But if you can momentarily surrender your logic and immerse yourself in the feels of the movie, it’s a diverting few hours of entertainment. Thanks to its stars and the story’s beautifully captured locations, it is also easy on the eyes.
Streaming now on Prime Video.
