'The Idea of You' Review: Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitizine Steam Up the Screen

The adaptation of Robinne Lee's book is a return to form for the romantic drama

Last year I wrote an article talking about the lack of sex in movies. Since that time we’ve seen a marked uptick, between Challengers (although I debate this), Netflix’s upcoming Hit Man and Amazon MGM’s latest movie, The Idea of You. Based on the book of the same name from Robinne Lee, The Idea of You gave me pause when it was first announced.

It was originally presented to me as “that Harry Styles fan fic” with an emphasis on a May/December relationship between an older woman and a younger man which, in film, has a history of being problematic. Oh, so problematic. But within about 10 minutes of watching director Michael Showalter’s adaptation my fears subsided, leaving me enthralled in an old school romantic drama with two fiery leads I wanted to follow into the abyss.

Solene (Anne Hathaway) is a 40-year-old single mother of a teenage daughter trying to find her proverbial groove. When her ex-husband leaves her to be the one to take her daughter to Coachella it’s there that Solene, through a comedy of errors, meets Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitizine), the lead singer of the popular boy band August Moon. The two soon embark on a relationship, though trouble lies in their wake stemming from Solene’s age difference to Hayes’ rabid fanbase.

Translating a book to the screen comes with a host of challenges — I know, I’ve literally written a book on them — and there are certainly moments where one can feel like these are book characters, particularly in character names (Hayes Campbell does not sound like a real person’s name). That being said, Showalter and co-writer Jennifer Westfeldt do a fantastic job of making everything feel as authentic as possible. August Moon, despite the eye-roll inducing name, comes off like a real band (with shades of everyone from One Direction to Turning Red’s fictional band, 4Town) with some incredibly catchy songs.

More importantly, Solene comes off less like a desperate housewife and more a woman on the liminal threshold between being an adult and still feeling like a young adult. Her and daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) have common taste in music and Hathaway certainly doesn’t look out of place at Coachella. It’s one of the more laughable moments when people bring up her age because Hathaway looks flawless. But the actress conveys so much of the uncertainty that’s still placed on milestone markers. When does one start to feel (and more importantly act) older?

Hathaway is complemented by Galitizine who actually steals the movie away from Hathaway entirely. He’s affable and charming, to be sure (you’d be shocked remembering he also played the insufferable quarterback in Bottoms). But Galitizine has such strong comedic timing, at times making this feel like an old-style 1940s romantic comedy. There aren’t any overt jokes made about him being a youth. He takes more humor out of moments where he doesn’t realize he’s a celebrity; when he says he’s excited to visit Glendale my entire audience laughed.

The two leads also have incredibly chemistry and things are downright hot. The movie takes its time to make the two intimate but once it does it’s incredibly intense, particularly with Hathaway’s Solene being the instigator, literally dressing for occasion in a reveal that will make you gasp (and not in the way you’d think).

The Idea of You will draw strong comparisons to Notting Hill and that should tell you how up and down the course of love runs in the movie. Once Hayes and Solene finally decide to take the plunge the film segues more into focusing on how Hayes’ success is the impediment in their relationship. These moments are fascinating, especially in illustrating the misogyny women in celebrity relationships are smothered with on social media.

As Annie Mumolo’s character Tracy, Solene’s best friend, tells her “People hate happy women.” The film doesn’t present one overall big bad — though Solene’s ex-husband certainly could have taken that prize — in favor of an overall feeling of judgement that says more about our cultural biases when May/December relationships are flipped.

It’s weird that this isn’t getting a theatrical release compared to Challengers as the long-suffering romantic drama fans will eat this one up. Hathaway and Galitizine make their characters’ drama fresh and sexy as hell, a fact enhanced by a strong script that treats its characters like people.

The Idea of You will stream on Amazon Prime Video May 2.