The Idea of You

Grade: B

Director Michael Showalter’s eclectic filmography includes the gay-centric tearjerker Spoiler Alert, and the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which garnered Jessica Chastain an Oscar. Now he tackles the romantic comedy with The Idea of You. It’s rated R, but oddly, its love scenes are PG-13 at worst. However, they are sufficiently steamy and effective.

Solène is a just-turned-40-year-old divorced mother. I wondered if this was going to be one of those treacly romcoms where we’re expected to believe someone who looks like Anne Hathaway can’t get a date – but no, at the beginning, we see our heroine has plenty of wannabe suitors. Hathaway plays Solène, who owns a modest art gallery in Silver Lake, California (near LA). Her ex-husband is now married to the “other woman” from his marriage to Solène. He was supposed to take their teenage daughter Izzy and a handful of friends to the Coachella music festival, but something work-related came up at the last minute, so it suddenly falls on Izzy to be the driver and chaperone.

At Coachella, Solène wanders into what she thinks is the VIP restroom, but it turns out to be a trailer belonging to 24-year-old superstar Hayes Campbell, from the popular boy band August Moon. It’s one of the more unique meet-cutes I’ve seen recently. They exchange names, and as an art connoisseur, he shows up at her gallery a few days later. He buys everything. They strike up a romance. She joins him on the European leg of August Moon’s tour, living the luxurious lifestyle with Hayes. He can afford to take care of her, and her art gallery’s entire inventory was just bought out, so why not, right?

It takes a surprising amount of time for news and pictures of their public displays of affection to go viral, but it does finally happen. The inevitable scrutiny of those under the limelight takes its toll. Izzy gets all sorts of comments/requests/unwanted attention at school, and Solène can’t resist looking online, despite Hayes’ admonition to stay off the internet. She sees a wide gamut of comments, including being called the dreaded C word. Cougar.

I initially wondered what they saw in each other, and why they connected, but it begins to make sense as the compelling narrative unfolds itself. After a turbulent childhood including parental divorce and strained relationships with them, he auditioned and got in this boy band at age 14. He hasn’t known a normal life for 10 years, if ever. He likes Solène because she’s not one of the many awestruck fangirls. She wasn’t even supposed to be at that concert. She is also unsure of how she fits in to life, with her age and circumstances, and finds him a breath of fresh air. I liked them together, and hoped it would work out, if they could learn to live with the new celebrity-by-association thrust upon them.

The movie could have done more digging and exploring. Several potentially interesting themes are not touched upon, like how Hayes’s mother issues might play into it, and if he ever wants kids, and how they would navigate that. But what we are given is perfectly solid. Hathaway really shines in material like this, and Nicholas Galitzine (from Bottoms and Red, White, & Royal Blue) is charming as Hayes. Showalter stages cute montages, and moves things along well. It could have been more, but it’s still quite a rich movie.

The ending is a bit too tidy. Movies that have an epilogue with a “[certain amount of] years later” title card usually pick right up from where we last saw these people, as if absolutely nothing else happened in all this time in between, and they were just waiting around to continue the story. Nevertheless, The Idea of You is often an endearing romantic comedy elevated by the sincere performances and chemistry of the two stars. The film could have delved deeper with some ideas, but the development we do get – and loving mother-daughter dynamic – is sunny and nice. And most importantly, it made me root for the main couple.

Grade: B