The Idea Of You - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

The summer blockbuster movie season is one of the times of year I look forward to the least. Most of the films produced and slated for release for the masses aren’t the movies I have much anticipation for. I had no idea what film I was going to even review next until I decided I needed to start writing again and threw on The Idea Of You, a new romantic comedy featuring Anne Hathaway. Hathaway plays a 40 year old, single mother who happens to fall for a much younger man who happens to be the lead singer of a famous boy band. I will say that what helped this film considerably was the fact that I had absolutely zero expectations for any entertainment value I might be able to derive from it. But even with that, this is some of the most conventional storytelling I’ve seen this year, expect the second act drama that pulls them apart, expect the ex that did her dirty to get his ill contrived comeuppance, expect the happy ending. This film isn’t as funny as the Sydney Sweeney film Anyone But You from earlier this year, nor as deep or impactful as something like Priscilla from last year, there are no deep resonating themes or nuances at work here. This film is shallow, superficial and lacks much depth in virtually every aspect of its characters, predictable storytelling or standard dialogue. That being said, in the words of the great Shania Twain, “Love gets me every time, my heart changed my mind.” Even though The Idea Of You might not be a terribly well thought out one, you just might find yourself smiling at this simple, predictable and silly little Idea.

SYNOPSIS - To begin this merry little romp, we hear the uptempo pop beat of the song Light On by Maggie Rogers, a scene opens of the beautiful blue waters of a reservoir surrounded by houses and trees. As the camera slowly pans to the left and the boppy song plays on, we eventually see the Hollywood sign perched on the hills far in the backdrop of the shot and know we’re somewhere in the suburbs of Los Angles, California. The film continues to show us some rolling hills and very nice homes adorning the hillsides, we see a sign that says “Welcome To The Silverlake Sunset Junction”, we’ve set up shop near the Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards intersection of L.A. After an outside view of a pretty standard house, we’re taken inside to meet Solène (Anne Hathaway) as she’s looking through some books and tossing them on her bed with some folded clothes she’s yet to pack. One book is about the San Bernardino hiking trails. As Solène prepares for some kind of camping trip, we hear the doorbell ring and she opens to find her friend Tracy (Annie Mumolo) waiting. She subsequently brings Tracy into a side room to show her a painting, Solène is an art dealer and runs a studio nearby. Tracy excitedly embraces her friend saying the piece is perfect and knows exactly where she wants to put it. As she brings her back through her home, we get a bit of exposition as Solène explains that her ex husband got their daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) a “all-access backstage pass and a VIP meet and greet with that boy band she used to like, August Moon.” Her ex, his new wife, their daughter and some of her friends are all going to Coachella while Solène has decided to try her hand out at camping.

As she drops Izzy off at her ex husband Daniel’s (Reid Scott) home, his new young wife Eva (Perry Mattfeld) rubs salt in a still clearly open wound as she fumbles for a complement, “You look really . . . I like your . . your dress”, she stammers. As Izzy and her friends remove their bags from her car for the trip, before Solène is able to escape the uncomfortable situation, Daniel comes to the car and has her roll down her window. In a futile attempt to mend his own sh!$?y behavior, he invites her over for dinner proclaiming Eva to be a great cook. Solène isn’t impressed but Daniel persists and invites her to play pickleball, “you don’t even have to be athletic”, he explains before he offers to have Eva teach her to play. The scene ends as she explains that she’s busy and can’t right now. Although we have no idea of the backstory here, we can guess that this relationship didn’t end well. She gets home, stands in front of a mirror and mocks the interactions we just witnessed with a bitterness and the angst that only a single, middle aged woman that was betrayed by a ex husband can. But soon Daniel arrives to tell her that he’s flying to Houston to save a merger that’s falling apart and she needs to take Izzy and her friends to Coachella. So much for camping. After a sequence of videos introducing us to Coachella, they arrive at the venue, a large open area with stages scattered around the field. Izzy and her friends take off while Solène checks in for the August Moon meet and greet. But after being directed to a restroom, she opens the wrong trailer and knocks on the bathroom door to a man saying “just a second”. As Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine) emerges and sees Solène standing there, he’s clearly confused at what’s happening until she awkwardly says, “Do you mind?”. He steps aside and allows her to use the facilities. Solène unwittingly torches the poor superstars trailer restroom and before exiting says, “I need to cut back on the yogurt.” This doesn’t actually happen as it would’ve made the whole sequence far too amusing for what the film’s director had in mind. But she emerges to find the perplexed man still sitting there and mistakes him for some kind of pervert that enjoys hearing a woman’s bathroom *coughing aahem* noises. Everything that you’d expect to happen next does, they start chatting, he takes a liking to Solène and they see each other again later at the meet and greet where they continue their previous conversation. The rollercoaster of their relationship has its highs and lows as we cruise through the almost two hour ride that has no other option than to leave you with a smile as you step off.

As I’ve highlighted earlier, many of the fundamental aspects of this film, from the direction by Michael Showalter to the screenplay that was adapted by Showalter from the Robinne Lee novel, this film is completely pedestrian in most respects. While it does prove to be a bit unconventional at times with the older woman dates a much younger man concept, that’s about the start and end of things this film does that is anything resembling unique. There is a fair amount of sex portrayed in the film, with no actual nudity present, which was almost a little surprising given the prime demographic for the film has to be middle aged females that grew up with the No Strings Attached and Millennium albums playing on repeat. This seems to be a perfectly normal PG-13 style movie, it must’ve barely earned its light R rating with the extra sexiness and a bit of profanity sprinkled in. While Nicholas Galitzine is perfectly serviceable playing the mid 20’s pop star, I feel that about a hundred other young actors could’ve delivered the exact same performance, or better. It’s Anna Hathaway that is the main attraction here, of course she’s excellent in most everything she appears in. Hathaway brings this character to life, despite the poor dialogue, she is quite amusing, with her natural charm and charisma on full display in front of the camera. She brings as much depth to the character as she’s able to, conveying the insecurities and emotions of a middle aged mother, grappling with the world of dating a much younger celebrity and offers us some quite amusing moments. While I do skew to the positive on this film, I won’t hide the fact that this film barely crept into the 7 of 10 rating, this is extremely standard romantic comedy fare, and it excels at neither the romance nor the comedy. 

SUMMARY - For both film critics and general audiences, you can find better romantic comedies out there, but if you’ve seen them all, you can certainly do worse than this one. It is a perfectly serviceable Friday night lounge movie to pass a couple hours snuggling on the couch with your partner, but The Idea Of You is a film that a year from now the idea of will be barely remembered.