Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old love interest played by Nicholas Galitzine in The Idea of You, is not Harry Styles. But he’s also not not Harry Styles. He’s British, tattooed, loves an oversized cardigan, and he’s a member of a boy band that he’s on the verge of outgrowing.
The former One Direction member is an inspiration author Robinne Lee has cited for the novel on which the movie is based, and while The Idea of You isn’t Harry Styles fan fiction — a budding subgenre — Hayes does retain the fuzzy outline of a projection. “He’s not a whole person, not in the way Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) is—the 40-year-old owner of a Silver Lake gallery, who has a chance encounter with him at Coachella while he’s chaperoning her teenage daughter to a meet-and-greet that turns into a whirlwind passion fest.”. The title suggests he is an idea—the hunky young pop star who gets to partake of all the benefits accruing from being part of a commercial phenomenon while staying above it, more sensitive, more talented, and more inclined to not just appreciate the charms of an older woman but to fall in love with her.
Anne Hathaway is just terrific as a 40-something woman swept up by romance with a boy-bander.
The Idea of You is a fantasia, just perhaps not the one that comes to mind from the logline of this movie. Directed with as much dogged as inspired competence by Michael Showalter, its escapism is less erotic than demographic: a dream of being able to partake in a cultural offering that’s no longer for you. Solène has just been freshly divorced from finance asshole Dan, played by Reid Scott, who’s left her for some young homegirl from work, and she’s trying so hard not to be bitter about it. She definitely cannot like Hayes’s band, August Moon. That would be humiliating—that much the movie makes clear in the VIP lounge encounter with a moon-headed, clutching-a-poster, middle-aged guy. August Moon is a construct, five cute guys with diverse personalities stitched together, as Hayes describes it to her, from headshots on a wall. Solène’s teenage daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), is already too old for their music, all adolescent longing.
But her encounter with Hayes, whom she mistakenly visits in his trailer, thinking it’s the bathroom, gives her a shame-free method of access to his concert. Even as the movie reassures us that Hayes is more than just a teenybopper by showing him noodling around on a guitar in service of his own compositions, reveled in relishing the experience of standing on the side of the stage in an arena of screaming teenagers, being serenaded by someone making it very clear to you that the pop song he is singing is for you.
This offering is more alluring than it sounds. Solène’s life is enviable: Silver Lake Craftsman, roster of good friends, charming business—but also very grown-up. After a montage of Solène getting hit on by awkward or not-actually-separated men in a taster of what dating as a 40-something will be like at her birthday party, things are set up a certain way. Meanwhile, Hayes is there with his uncomplicated musical pleas for love and his itinerant existence flying around in a private plane and idling in European cities between shows—a life unencumbered by adult baggage.
The first time that he and Solène are together, it’s in a hotel room above Manhattan, an idyllic non-space where they can fall into each other’s arms and then order room service afterward. It’s a sexy scene, though every other lusty encounter folds into montages that prioritize an image of them sprawling through luxury sheets over actual hooking up. With Izzy at camp and Solène’s gallery emptied out by Hayes’s purchases, he coaxes an at-first resistant Solène to come along with him on tour; an interlude presented as a giddily delirious whirl of sightseeing and tumbling around different rented suites, a romance set on vacation.
Galitzine, off the much more ridiculous Red, White & Royal Blue, never gets within a stone’s throw of conjuring a working pop star charisma. That doesn’t sink the movie too much, tenancy it’s so overwhelmingly about Solène, and as Solène, Hathaway gives a particularly lovely and vulnerable performance. She’s marvelous as a woman rediscovering big, swooping feelings, and teaching herself that they’re not the přírodní domain of the young.
At 41, Hathaway hardly looks any older than her 29-year-old co-star, which really dulls a lot of the provocation that’s meant to come with the age gap between the lovers. The performers themselves may not sizzle with innate chemistry, but the movie manages to be sultry regardless, thanks to the spectacle of Solène feeling desirable. When she shows up in New York in heels and a trench coat that she peels off to reveal a sheer dress, it is the equivalent of someone who has just walked into a spotlight. The Idea of You could stand to be a little more indulgent—it lets the real world crash into its unlikely relationship almost before it gets underway—but it’s surprisingly seductive even with its restraint. Anyone can holler along to a One Direction song in the privacy of their home, but it’s something else to reconnect with the feelings expressed by one of those big choruses.
